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T5’s CHI V Acquisition Adds a Planned 36 MW Data Center Site in Chicago

T5’s CHI V deal is an acquisition of a data-center-zoned site, not an operating facility. The planned 36 MW project highlights the value—and execution risks—of securing power in Chicago’s O’Hare corridor.
From TheFinanceBase Team6 min to read
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T5 Data Centers acquired a seven-acre, data-center-zoned site in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and announced plans to build a 220,000-square-foot facility there with 36 MW of critical IT capacity. The project, called CHI V, was targeted for occupancy in 2028. It is a land acquisition and development plan—not an operating data center. Its significance is the effort to secure a powered, entitled site in Chicago’s O’Hare data-center corridor years ahead of delivery.

What T5 acquired—and what it plans to build

T5 announced the acquisition on March 26, 2025. Its announcement describes CHI V as a seven-acre Elk Grove Village site already zoned for data-center use. The company said it planned a 220,000-square-foot facility designed for high-density cloud computing and artificial-intelligence workloads, with 36 MW of critical IT capacity and occupancy targeted for 2028. T5’s announcement and Data Center Dynamics’ coverage describe the plan; neither makes the target date a guarantee.

A commercial-real-estate source identifies the property as 950 and 1050 Morse Avenue and reports a transaction value above $21.3 million. T5 did not disclose a purchase price in its announcement, so that figure should be treated as third-party reporting, not an officially confirmed price. Van Vlissingen & Co.’s report

Dividing the announced 36 MW of critical IT capacity by 220,000 square feet gives roughly 164 watts per square foot. That is only a rough comparison of the two announced figures—not total building-power density or a specification for individual racks. The public announcement does not establish the number of GPU racks, tenants, cooling design, power-usage effectiveness (PUE), or annual energy consumption.

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Why the site’s power path matters

T5 said it had completed the steps needed to secure utility power from ComEd and planned to begin construction shortly after the announcement. That is a statement about the project’s utility arrangements, not confirmation that the facility had been energized or that all required electrical infrastructure was complete. A data center’s critical IT capacity is not interchangeable with its total utility load: cooling, power conversion, backup systems, and other building needs also require infrastructure.

Power availability can determine whether a development site is usable on the schedule customers need. A filing with the Illinois Commerce Commission documents substantial ComEd work associated with new data-center customers in Elk Grove, including electric-service infrastructure and transmission lines. It illustrates the scale of utility investment involved in serving the area, but does not establish that each listed item was for CHI V. Illinois Commerce Commission filing

For a developer, a site with suitable zoning and a credible utility path can be more useful than a larger parcel without either. Connectivity, permitting, construction, equipment procurement, commissioning, and utility delivery still have to align before a planned facility can serve customers.

Why Elk Grove Village and the O’Hare corridor attract projects

Elk Grove Village is an established data-center location near O’Hare International Airport, with industrial infrastructure and access to a substantial carrier and network ecosystem. The village has promoted itself as a technology and data-center hub. In a 2020 municipal release, it described the community as having the Midwest’s highest concentration of data centers at that time, citing 12 facilities and more than 2.6 million square feet. That is a historical municipal claim, not a current market count. Elk Grove Village’s release

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Chicago’s broader appeal also includes its central U.S. location and an established base of carriers, cloud providers, enterprises, and data-center operators. Illinois’ 2024 data-center report provides state-level investment and policy context, but eligibility and the terms of any incentive depend on the specific program and project; the report alone does not establish that CHI V receives a particular benefit. Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, 2024 report

How CHI V fits T5’s Chicago portfolio

T5 described CHI V as its fifth data-center location in the Chicago market and its fourth project in the O’Hare submarket in recent years. Those are the company’s portfolio labels; they do not mean that five T5 Chicago facilities were operating when the acquisition was announced. CHI V was a development site for a proposed facility.

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The announcement referenced T5’s Chicago I and Chicago II locations in Elk Grove Village, Chicago III in Northlake, and Chicago IV in Grayslake, alongside the new CHI V site. Chicago III is a separate project: Data Center Dynamics later reported that it topped out at about 250,000 square feet and 36 MW. Those specifications and that construction milestone should not be attributed to CHI V. Data Center Dynamics on Chicago III

What the 36 MW plan says about AI—and what it does not

T5 explicitly positioned CHI V for high-density cloud and AI applications. That makes the proposed capacity relevant to buyers seeking large blocks of computing infrastructure, but 36 MW by itself does not reveal how many servers or accelerators the facility could host. The answer would depend on deployment design, rack density, cooling, redundancy, and how much of the site’s power is available to IT equipment.

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AI workloads can put greater demands on power distribution and heat removal than conventional deployments. Yet T5’s public announcement does not specify whether CHI V will use liquid cooling, a closed-loop system, or another cooling architecture, nor does it state water use or PUE. Those details cannot be inferred from a separate developer’s project.

Competition signals demand, not a guaranteed shortage measure

T5’s acquisition came amid other development activity in Elk Grove Village. STACK Infrastructure separately announced a 263,000-square-foot facility with 36 MW of capacity for AI and cloud workloads. That project is not part of CHI V, and its design details should not be applied to T5’s site. The two announcements show multiple developers pursuing capacity in the same submarket; they do not, on their own, quantify vacancy or prove that all planned capacity will be leased. STACK’s announcement

T5 said available data-center space in the O’Hare market was limited. Separately, Data Center Knowledge’s March 28, 2025 report cited an Omdia estimate of more than 70 data centers in Chicago and described vacancy as historically low. These claims depend on the source’s market definition, date, and methodology; they are not a universal, continuously updated measure of availability. Data Center Knowledge’s report

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Risks between site acquisition and customer-ready capacity

Utility delivery and schedule

Securing a utility arrangement does not eliminate the risk of delays in interconnection, substations, transmission work, or other infrastructure. A 2028 occupancy target leaves multiple delivery steps to complete, and no source cited here verifies CHI V’s energization or a revised construction schedule.

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Permits, construction, and procurement

Data-center zoning is an important starting point, not a substitute for project approvals, building permits, construction, equipment delivery, and commissioning. The cited public material does not identify CHI V’s general contractor, equipment suppliers, tenant commitments, or a commissioning schedule.

Cooling, water, and community effects

High-density computing requires effective heat removal. Without a disclosed design, CHI V’s cooling method and water impact are unknown. Noise, backup generation, land use, and utility infrastructure can also shape local review and community acceptance.

Demand and financing

Long lead times require developers to commit capital before all future customer demand is certain. Cloud buyers may change deployment timing, improve server utilization, or choose other regions. Interest rates, equipment lead times, and tenant concentration can also affect project economics. The cited sources do not establish that CHI V is financed, fully leased, or pre-sold.

What buyers and local stakeholders should watch

For a prospective customer, a headline capacity figure is only a starting point. The practical questions are when usable power will be available, what density and cooling the facility can support, how resilient its utility and network connections are, and what lease structure and delivery commitments apply. Local stakeholders may also want to follow permitting, utility work, and disclosures about water, noise, and backup generation.

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  • Building permits, site work, and any announced construction milestones.
  • ComEd infrastructure and delivery milestones, without assuming that area-wide utility work is specific to CHI V.
  • Tenant or build-to-suit announcements and the project’s intended service model.
  • Cooling-system, water-use, and power-efficiency disclosures.
  • Any revised delivery date or local economic-development and incentive approvals.

As of August 16, 2026, the sources cited here establish the acquisition announcement, proposed specifications, and original 2028 target; they do not independently establish that CHI V opened, secured tenants, received delivered power, or reached a later construction milestone.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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