Why power moved to the top of the checklist

Five years ago, a tenant's power needs were mostly lighting, dock equipment, and HVAC — well within what any spec building could deliver. That's changed. Conveyor and sortation automation, robotics, cold storage and refrigeration, and electric delivery fleets with on-site charging infrastructure all draw materially more power than a conventional dry-goods warehouse.

The result: a building that looks perfect on clear height, column spacing, and dock count can still be the wrong building if the electrical service can't support your operation — or can't be upgraded on your timeline.

What actually constrains you

"Power capacity" isn't one number. It's a chain of constraints, and any link can be the bottleneck:

  • Utility service size — the amperage actually delivered to the building today, which is often well below what the site could theoretically support.
  • Transformer and switchgear capacity — even if the utility can deliver more, the building's existing electrical infrastructure has to be able to step it down and distribute it.
  • Available capacity vs. committed capacity — other tenants in a multi-tenant building may already have claims on shared electrical infrastructure.
  • Utility upgrade queue — if you need more than what's currently installed, the utility's interconnection and construction timeline becomes part of your move-in schedule, not a footnote.

How to evaluate it before you tour

Don't wait until you're standing in the electrical room to ask these questions. Build them into your site-selection brief up front:

  1. What is the existing utility service size (amps, voltage) to the building, and how much is currently committed to other tenants?
  2. What is the transformer and main switchgear capacity, and how much headroom exists above current draw?
  3. Has the landlord or a prior tenant already requested a utility upgrade study? If so, what did it find?
  4. What is the utility's current interconnection queue and typical timeline for a service upgrade in this specific submarket?
  5. Is there room on the site for additional transformers, switchgear, or a dedicated substation if you eventually need to go beyond what a standard upgrade provides?

A five-minute call to the landlord's engineer or property manager can answer the first three. The utility answers the last two — and utilities respond faster to a landlord or a tenant's broker with a specific account number than to a general inquiry.

The strategic point. Treat power capacity like you'd treat clear height or column spacing — a hard filter applied before you tour, not a diligence item you check after you've fallen for a building. A building that fails on power isn't fixable on your timeline in most cases; utility upgrades commonly run six months to well over a year depending on the submarket and scope.

What to negotiate if the building needs an upgrade

Sometimes the right building has a power gap you can close. If so, negotiate these terms before you sign, not after:

  • Who pays. Utility upgrade costs are frequently negotiable between landlord and tenant, especially when the upgrade also benefits future tenants of the building.
  • Who's responsible for the timeline. Make the landlord contractually responsible for initiating and managing the utility upgrade process, with your rent commencement tied to actual delivery of usable power — not just building possession.
  • What happens if the upgrade slips. Build in rent abatement or a termination right if the power upgrade isn't delivered by an outside date. Without this, you carry 100% of the schedule risk for a utility process you don't control.

Power capacity isn't a glamorous line item, and most tenants don't think to ask about it until an operations team flags it mid-lease. By then, you're negotiating from a building you've already committed to — which is the worst possible time to discover the site can't actually run your operation.