DartPoints, a regional colocation and interconnection provider, announced on May 27 the acquisition of a data center campus in Lexington, Kentucky. The site spans 343,000 square feet across 29.5 acres and includes approximately 81,000 square feet of existing raised-floor data center space. It is fully zoned for data center use and comes with an owned on-site substation, a detail that carries more weight right now than it might have a few years ago.
Getting a new substation built and energized in markets where data center demand is surging can take three to five years, according to utility interconnection data tracked by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Having one in place at acquisition removes one of the most stubborn variables in large-scale campus development timelines.
DartPoints Lexington Campus Power Path: 20 to 30 MW Initial Phase, Expandable to 70 MW
Current planning puts the first buildout phase at 20 to 30 megawatts (MW), with longer-term expansion potential to 70 MW. The campus is designed to support rack densities up to 200 kilowatts (kW) per cabinet and 415-volt power distribution, both of which reflect the infrastructure requirements that AI inference and training workloads have pushed into mainstream facility planning over the past two years. The cooling architecture includes both traditional air-cooled environments and direct-to-chip liquid cooling using closed-loop, low-water-use heat rejection technology.
DartPoints is developing the site to serve AI, hyperscale, neocloud, and enterprise compute deployments. The company cited active engagement with Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E) as a factor in the site's feasibility, noting that utility collaboration has helped accelerate the timeline compared to a typical greenfield project. Its location between major connectivity hubs in Ashburn, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; and Atlanta, Georgia positions the campus to serve latency-sensitive workloads that need proximity to those markets without competing for the same constrained power capacity.
Secondary Market Data Center Growth Is Driven by Power Availability, Not Just Cost
Lexington is not an accident. The pressure pushing data center operators into secondary and tertiary markets is largely a power access story. Primary markets including Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Phoenix, and Dallas have seen power interconnection queues extend significantly, with some utility service territories pausing new large-load service agreements while infrastructure catches up. CBRE's 2025 data center outlook reported that interconnection delays and constrained utility capacity were the leading site selection constraints cited by hyperscale operators.
Kentucky has invested in grid infrastructure over the past several years, and its power costs remain below the national average for industrial customers. The state also has relatively limited data center saturation compared to markets that have absorbed most hyperscale investment over the past decade. For an operator like DartPoints, which serves regional enterprise, neocloud, and AI inference customers rather than the largest hyperscale platforms, a site like Lexington offers scale headroom that is increasingly difficult to find in established markets.
