EBG Studios · Development Atlas · DRAFT — For review & feedback
The primary case study
A fictional 20-acre site becomes a 12 MW enterprise data center, owned and operated by one company. Follow the people, evidence and commitments that connect an open field to occupied data halls.
From land to live capacity
The site must connect to power and fiber. The building must manage heat and support operations. The enterprise must justify capital and lifecycle costs against its business service needs. Those are connected questions.
Loading the campus, scanned materials and rigged people.
The project brief · fictional assumptions
Two schematic data halls, electrical and cooling yards, a service entrance and a retained landscape buffer. The enterprise also owns its IT equipment: an additional $48M initial teaching allowance. No reliability tier or engineering certification is implied.
Discover
Before there is a building, there is a business need. Maya works with the chief information officer and application owners to plan a twelve-megawatt enterprise data center. One company will own the campus and use it for its own applications, data and private cloud. The first decision is whether the workload forecast and resilience needs justify investigating a dedicated facility.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Discover
Eli checks access, neighboring uses, fiber routes and possible electrical service. A nearby power line does not prove that usable capacity will be delivered when needed. Noor works with the utility on capacity, connection scope and timing while the team compares site alternatives and community impacts.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Discover
Surveyors mark boundaries while investigators examine soils, water, environmental conditions and title. The sponsor seeks site control with investigation rights and clear deadlines. A difficult finding can change the design, the price or the decision to proceed. The land remains unbuilt while this evidence is assembled.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Plan & Commit
A concept rises from the field. Morgan, the project architect, brings the data halls, staff spaces, safe circulation and building envelope into one coordinated design. Eli shapes the site and drainage. Noor plans power and cooling around the enterprise workloads. Together, they make room for maintenance, security and future change, test resilience against business needs, and prepare drawings that reviewers and builders can understand.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Plan & Commit
In Norfolk, Nebraska, Maya and Morgan meet city planners, building reviewers, the fire marshal and the public works team. Eli coordinates drainage and utility connections. State environmental reviewers assess stormwater coverage and any permits triggered by the equipment. Each reviewer protects a different public interest. The team records decisions and conditions, because land-use support, a building permit and permission to occupy are separate milestones.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Plan & Commit
The capital committee reviews the business case: one hundred forty million dollars for the facility, plus forty-eight million for enterprise IT equipment in this teaching example. Sam aligns the approved funding, construction sequence and long-lead orders. The enterprise also funds operations, equipment refresh and the migration plan. A finished shell alone cannot deliver the business service.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Deliver & Use
The authorized site work begins. Excavators grade the platform, crews install below-ground services, and the team controls runoff and protects the retained buffer. Foundations start to trace the future data halls. Early work is inspected before later construction covers it.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Deliver & Use
Alex leads the commissioning team through equipment tests and integrated systems testing. Facilities operators rehearse alarms, transitions and recovery procedures before enterprise workloads depend on the building. Unresolved failures remain on the issues register. Regulatory permissions, facilities acceptance and IT service readiness are separate gates that must align.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Deliver & Use
The enterprise campus is working. Facilities technicians maintain the infrastructure while IT teams operate the applications. Jo reviews service availability, security, actual load, energy and total operating cost. Capacity planning, equipment refresh and recovery exercises continue throughout the building’s life. Success means dependable service for the business, supported by evidence and a funded operating plan.
See this stage in the 3D tour →Juniper Ridge · enterprise decision lab
Juniper Ridge is owned and operated by one enterprise for its applications, data and private cloud. The capital committee evaluates business need, resilience and total cost of ownership. All figures below are fictional teaching assumptions.
Allocation reserves capacity for application teams. Actual measured load, installed IT capacity and planned allocation are different measures. Unallocated capacity is not a certified resilience reserve.
Energy-only cost: $5,676,480/year. Excludes demand charges, taxes and tariff details. Annual PUE is an energy ratio, not a peak service-sizing factor.
Ten operating years, constant annual IT load and PUE, initial capital at time zero and year-end operating payments. Operating costs escalate at 3.0% annually; the year-six refresh is an explicit nominal amount. Present cost discounts cash outflows at 8.0%. The baseline $140M facility budget comprises $4M land, $8M site works, $102M construction and systems, $10M soft costs and $16M contingency. Initial IT is $48M; facilities operations $4.2M/year and IT operations $2.4M/year exclude the separately calculated electricity.
Excludes financing structure, tax, depreciation, residual value, decommissioning, software licensing, network carrier charges, migration cost and business benefits. Scope these for an actual capital decision. Allocation alone does not reduce the fixed capital or operating budget.
Context: IBM · enterprise data centers ↗ · U.S. Department of Energy · design guide ↗.
The case study notebook
Riverton Logistics Center is fictional. Its site, figures and complications are educational assumptions. Your committed decisions build a traceable alternative to the baseline.
Riverton Logistics Center
Demand is a hypothesis. Utilities are uncertain. Loading matters to the tenant. Follow each decision and see how cost, time and value develop together.
Your evolving case
| Outcome | Original illustrative baseline | Your evolving case |
|---|---|---|
| Total development cost | $13,500,000 | $13,500,000 |
| Stabilized NOI | $900,000 | $900,000 |
| Value above cost | $1,500,000 | $1,500,000 |
| Construction + delay | 18 months | 18 months |
| Carry convention | Static $900K allowance | Static allowance |
Modeled propagation: chosen site changes land/utilities; revised diligence adds a $200K provisional allowance; Concept B changes cost, area and assumed owner income burden; approval and construction decisions change cost and delay. Both concepts preserve your chosen area; only B applies the saving and income penalty. Other decisions remain narrative evidence. Committing delays enables calculated carry, so the comparison also changes the carry convention. Stage 9 actuals are a separate performance review.
Discover
Riverton begins with a hypothesis: local distribution businesses need flexible loading and modern clear heights. The sponsor has $5M of equity and prefers a single-phase project. These are fictional investor criteria, not universal standards.
Discover
Riverton compares an 8-acre served site, a cheaper peripheral parcel and an infill parcel with uncertain approvals. The cheapest parcel needs a utility extension; its cost belongs in the site budget.
Discover
An environmental memo flags historic fill, the utility letter promises only a future capacity review, and a survey shows access crossing an adjoining parcel. Riverton must resolve these uncertainties before waiving contingencies.
Plan & Commit
A $400K construction saving reduces assumed annual NOI by $60K. At a 6% cap rate, that is $1M less value. The cheaper option leaves $600K less value above cost. The NOI effect is an explicit hypothetical user-utility assumption.
Plan & Commit
Riverton receives a drainage condition and a possible six-month delay. Its financing requires a minimum 1.20× DSCR and a new review if timing changes. These illustrative conditions vary by lender and jurisdiction.
Plan & Commit
One Riverton bid excludes dock equipment and carries a longer lead time. Reintroducing that scope and schedule carry changes which offer is cheapest.
Deliver & Use
Riverton needs a $180K loading revision. Critical equipment is four months late; expediting costs $120K and recovers two months. The remaining contingency must cover both known changes and future uncertainty.
Deliver & Use
The Riverton shell is finished, but a fire-system test is pending and the occupancy document is missing. Paint touch-ups do not carry the same readiness consequence as these blockers.
Deliver & Use
Riverton reaches 88% occupancy at $9.75/SF, while nonrecoverable expenses rise to $65K. Learners distinguish revenue and expense causes of the NOI gap before choosing an operating response.
Change the context
Fictional leased industrial acquisition. The $9M land/purchase input is the purchase price; $200K soft costs cover closing. Existing leases begin at 92% occupancy. Annual net rent grows at the selected rate. Permanent acquisition debt starts at closing; construction timing does not apply.
Test this: Can collections, expiring leases and capital needs support the purchase basis?
Fictional 80,000-SF industrial value-add. $5.5M purchase, $1.6M renovation, 12 months without rent, then 90% occupancy. Detailed mode treats the bridge facility as interest-only until same-balance permanent takeout. Interim income and cash-out refinancing are not assumed.
Test this: Does the income improvement justify renovation, downtime and the bridge takeout risk?
Fictional 24-home infill development. 24,000 rentable SF at $24/SF/year is equivalent to $2,000/month per 1,000-SF home. Expenses include owner operating costs; no separate rent recoveries.
Test this: How do owner-paid expenses and the ratio of rentable to gross area change the housing economics?
Supporting project files
A fictional 90,000-SF existing industrial property offered at $9M, with $200K closing costs and a $100K funded reserve. Three leases cover 82,800 SF. All three initially pay $11/SF/year net base rent; 7,200 SF is vacant. The aggregate model starts at 92% occupancy and $75K of annual owner expenses.
| Tenant | Area | Annual net base rent | Remaining term assumption |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harbor Textiles | 40,000 SF | $440,000 | 2 years |
| Parcel Loop | 30,000 SF | $330,000 | 4 years |
| Local Parts Cooperative | 12,800 SF | $140,800 | 5 years |
| Vacant | 7,200 SF | $0 | Unleased |
Investment tension: the largest tenant supplies about 48% of occupied base rent and has the earliest expiry. Before extending its current income through the hold, review renewal intent, competing premises, tenant credit, concession obligations and required fit-out. The integrated preset aggregates annual NOI growth; it does not automatically roll each lease on these dates.
Decision artifact: reconcile the $910,800 initial rental revenue to leases and collections, test vacancy at the first expiry, and compare sale proceeds after costs and payoff. The acquisition begins at closing without a construction delay.
Work through acquisition underwriting ↗A fictional 80,000-SF older industrial building costs $5.5M. Before work, assume half the area is occupied at $8/SF/year. The modeled intervention requires a full 12-month closure, so the integrated development period receives no interim rent. After reopening, the target is $12 net rent and 90% occupancy; $80K of annual owner expenses leaves a target NOI of $784K.
| Package | Allowance | Evidence required |
|---|---|---|
| Roof and envelope | $450,000 | Condition survey and watertightness specification |
| Lighting and controls | $200,000 | Performance and commissioning criteria |
| Loading and circulation | $550,000 | Tenant requirements and access review |
| Office and service areas | $400,000 | Scoped layouts and comparable bids |
Investment tension: the initial $320K occupied annual rent is foregone during closure, but it must not be deducted again from a forecast that already has zero receipts. The purchase, $200K site work, $450K soft costs, $250K contingency and financing also need funding. The bridge and permanent takeout must be evaluated even if the target rent is achieved.
Decision artifact: compare a slower lease-up with the target, test permanent takeout against bridge payoff, and explain how much value comes from NOI improvement versus a different exit cap. The separate transition mini-lab illustrates average occupancy along the path.
Model the lease-up transition ↗A fictional infill housing project contains 24 homes averaging 1,000 rentable SF. The $24/SF/year rent assumption is equivalent to $2,000 monthly per home. At 95% occupancy, annual rent is $547,200; $160K of owner operating expenses leaves $387,200 NOI. These are assumptions, not an affordability claim or a market quotation.
| Topic | Assumption or question | Decision owner |
|---|---|---|
| Area | 24,000 rentable SF; gross area and circulation need design reconciliation | Architect |
| Operating burden | Owner-paid services and maintenance are included in the $160K aggregate expense assumption | Property manager |
| Access and approvals | Verify emergency access, drainage, parking and applicable local approval requirements | Civil engineer and local authority |
| Lease-up | Target 95% occupancy; test slower leasing and owner expense increases | Leasing and asset management |
Investment tension: gross building area may exceed rentable area, while owner-paid operating costs are significant relative to rental income. Copying a warehouse’s rent convention or operating-cost ratio would distort the housing case.
Decision artifact: reconcile the unit and SF program, test a rent and expense downside, and compare total cost with stabilized value at the assumed 5.5% cap. Do not interpret that assumed cap as a current market fact.
Connect the program to the model ↗