Publication: Charlotte Business Journal, May 29, 2026
Some communities are welcoming data centers while others are resisting the facilities on concerns of their immense power needs. The Charlotte City Council is considering a 150-day moratorium on new data centers to have time to develop regulations on the property type.
With development only expected to ramp up, Grant Miller, Vice Chair at Industrial Colliers; R. Lee Robertson, Jr., Managing Partner at Robertson & Associates, P.A.; Sasha Weintraub, Executive Vice President & Chief Customer Officer at Duke Energy; and Keith Poettker, Chairman & CEO at Poettker Construction; gathered to talk about how projects are being shaped, powered and advanced through early-stage partnerships.
“I think it’s going to get harder and harder, and in some ways, the low-hanging fruit is gone,” says Sasha Weintraub, Duke Energy’s chief customer officer. “This is the start of the fourth industrial revolution. We are in the largest infrastructure build-out of history and the largest deployment of capital and the largest acceleration of the power system in history. And we are only in the first inning of that.”
The Tomorrow’s Real Estate event was presented by the Charlotte Business Journal and sponsored by Arthur Elliott and Robertson & Associates.
On Data Centers Going Mainstream
The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 was an inflection point that started the race to build millions of square feet of data center space globally.
Given the significant power demands of the property type, Miller with Colliers says conversations prioritize that resource.
“We don’t talk about real estate. We talk about power. That’s where it has changed,” Miller says. “It truly is understanding what can be done at the site from a power standpoint and how quickly that can be done. That’s where we have the conversations day in and day out.”
Even the availability of labor, which was a major concern two years ago, has fallen on the list of priorities.
From a builder’s perspective, Poettker says owners and investors want decisions made early about power capacity — well before the building itself is designed.
Initially, Miller says, real estate speculators grabbed potential data center sites and inflated prices. Those speculators are not as prevalent today.
On Building Data Centers
Making an early determination of how power will come to a potential data center site is a primary task for construction managers, says Poettker. His team examines options and the risks of securing that resource, aiming to get that information to client as quickly as possible.
“We’re really wanting to vet all the site development assumptions and analyze where there’s risk exposure and get that information,” Poettker says. “Every day we’re spending billions of dollars analyzing that. The earlier we can get to that, the better, so the construction manager needs to be involved from day one. That’s where major decisions are made.”
Once a project moves ahead, speed to market is expected, Poettker says. Construction firms put immense effort into creating the sequencing of the development to have projects come out of the ground in as little as 12 months and complete within four years.
The construction itself is not unusual, Poettker says, it’s the electrical and mechanical design and implementation that matters.
“We’re building big boxes that are heavy on electrical and mechanical,” said Poettker. “The building itself isn’t complicated. The guts are — and commissioning those systems has to start day one.”
On Finding Construction Labor
Work begins early to ensure there are enough electrical engineers and electricians, mechanical engineers, and plumbers and specially trained technicians to complete a massive data center. Poettker says strong relationships with trade partners are essential to a successful, fully-staffed project.
“These are very aggressive jobs so making sure there’s a strong site grading contractor and electrical and mechanical contractor along is important,” Poettker says.
Early planning helps to determine whether a job will require 100 workers or 200 workers. There’s also planning for many specialty subcontractors on the job.
“Labor is a challenge nationwide,” Poettker says. “We’ve been in a trade labor shortage for 15 years, and it’s going to get more challenging as the Baby Boomers leave the workforce.”
Ultimately, productivity on a job site comes down to strong workforce development programs to overcome extreme shortages of electricians and plumbers.
On How Data Centers Get Power
Power demands are the singular driving force behind data center location and also a key concern among those pushing back against development.
In the Carolinas, Duke Energy treats data centers as large-load customers who are part of the overall energy system. That means Duke is not building any infrastructure specifically for data center users. Most projects require a substation and there are early conversations about whether Duke Energy or the developer will build that piece of the project. There are conversations about whether the transmission system needs to be supported to get power to the site, especially if the site is far away.
For power generation, Weintraub says Duke Energy has an all-of-the-above approach to power generation, including battery energy systems and natural gas plants.
“These tech companies are looking for someone to partner with where they also have very aggressive sustainability goals,” he says. “They want power from someone that already has a very clean system like Duke does in the Carolinas with nuclear energy.”
While there’s a lot of infrastructure that’s going to be built, Weintraub says the data center developers will pay for that infrastructure.
“Infrastructure that is built will be paid for by them,” Weintraub says. “They are not subsidized by residential customers. They pay their fair share of these.”
On Who Pays for Data Center Power
States where electrical utilities are unregulated have a very different system for paying for data center development than in states like North Carolina, where Duke Energy operates as a regulated utility, Weintraub says.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission holds quasi-legal proceedings to determine what rate payers will pay. Weintraub called it a transparent process that is different from other states and regions of the U.S.
“It’s a process to make sure the right cost is being paid for by the right customer,” Weintraub says. “We go through a process with our regulator, and once we build something, you go through a rate case to see who’s going to pay for that.”
Weintraub said that for Duke Energy customers, data center costs for energy will not show up on residential customers’ energy bills. Data centers will pay for data center energy and will not negatively impact traditional customers’ rates. He expects that data centers developed in North Carolina could actually lower residential bills over time because of the infrastructure upgrades that data center customers will pay for to improve the reliability of the grid.
He says data centers are required to have interruptible power so that on extremely hot summer days, data centers can be asked to turn on their back-up power sources for a period of time to not strain the overall power supply from which business and residential customers get energy.
“Reliability is not going to be impacted by bringing on data centers,” said Weintraub.
On Perceptions in the Community
With growing push-back in some communities gathering attention from elected officials, panelists say it’s important to be transparent and provide information to address residents’ concerns.
Miller says developers are increasingly interested in how the community will respond to a data center proposal.
“What we’re seeing these folks do is really educate the community by hosting town halls or compiling every question and getting that out to the public,” Miller says.
As a builder, Poettker says his firm works to answer questions early, preferably before they are posed in a public forum because long-term success in a community depends on trust, not just delivery.
“There’s a lot of things we can do on the front end to dispel things like dust control issues or traffic issues and stuff that sometimes causes negative attention. We’re trying our hardest to get in front of that,” Poettker says.
Miller says misinformation spread via social media creates misnomers.
“There are communities that want this, it feels like it’s a good fit, and they feel like this is going to be a good community citizen,” Miller says.
For all of the challenges and controversy on AI and data centers, Weintraub says he believes the benefits of the technology will soon be more evident.
“Two years from now we will see a world starting to emerge around all of this AI technology,” he says. “Right now, it’s a challenge, but soon we will see its benefits. There’s a world of AI that’s coming that we can’t even think about, and it’s going to be amazing.”
