10/10/2026
Negotiate hard before approving a data center campus. Once approval is granted, most of the leverage is gone. That is advice from Mark Cuban, the well-known technology entrepreneur and investor.
Mark recently published a 10-point checklist for local governments:
1. Hire independent lawyers, engineers, financial advisers, hydrologists and noise experts who work for the community, not the developer. Where the law allows, require the developer to pay for that independent review.
2. Evaluate the entire proposed development, including future phases, substations, transmission lines, cooling systems, generators and water infrastructure. Do not evaluate only the first building or phase.
3. Put every protection in a legally enforceable document. Setbacks, noise limits and operating standards belong in ordinances and permits. Financial obligations and penalties belong in binding agreements. A promise made during a presentation is not protection.
4. Establish firm water-use limits, including annual, daily and peak-hour limits. Require independent monitoring, public reporting and a written drought plan. Even “closed-loop” cooling systems can consume water during hot weather.
5. Protect nearby residents from noise before the equipment is ordered. Measure existing sound levels and account for nighttime noise, tonal sound and the low-frequency hum produced by cooling equipment. An ordinary decibel limit may not adequately measure the kind of noise that causes many complaints.
6. Distinguish emergency generators from power plants intended to operate routinely. Set limits on operating hours, emissions, testing, fuel storage and future expansion.
7. Make the project pay for the infrastructure it requires. Taxpayers and utility customers should not be left paying for substations, transmission lines, roads, water systems or other improvements if the project is delayed, reduced or abandoned.
8. Calculate the community’s actual financial return. Compare projected tax revenue and payments with tax breaks, public infrastructure expenses, service costs and long-term liabilities. Construction jobs are temporary, and data centers generally provide relatively few permanent jobs compared with their enormous cost.
9. Require real financial backing before construction begins. That can include cash escrow, letters of credit, bonds and guarantees from a financially credible parent company. A newly created project LLC with few assets should not be the only company responsible when something goes wrong.
10. Approve the project in phases and require an independently funded closure and decommissioning plan. Later phases should depend on compliance with existing requirements and proof that the necessary infrastructure is available.
Cuban’s basic rule is that every important promise should have a measurable limit, an independent way to verify compliance, a financially responsible party standing behind it and a practical remedy when the promise is broken.
That advice could not be more relevant to Project River and Project Midspan.
Why would Cleveland annex these properties before the full projects have been independently studied, before the city has adopted specific rules for data centers and their associated power plants, before the operators or data-center tenants have been identified, and before enforceable financial protections are in place?
Annexation is leverage. Rezoning is leverage. Utility access is leverage. Those things should not be given away based on presentations, projections and promises that may not be legally enforceable.
Mark Cuban’s message to local governments is simple: do the studies, adopt the rules, identify who is financially responsible and secure the protections before saying yes.
Once approval is granted, it may be too late.
Cuban urged towns to demand enforceable protections from data centers, emphasizing oversight, water, and noise limits before approval.
