Data center developer DataBank has landed $2 billion in construction financing for three of its eight planned buildings at a Dallas-area campus in a move that accelerates the completion timeline for the hub.
The financing secured by a group of banks led by MUFG Bank Ltd., Japan's largest bank and core banking arm of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, is expected to fund the build-out of the first three data center buildings on the campus it has underway in Red Oak, Texas, a city roughly 20 miles south of downtown Dallas. The initial three buildings, called DFW9, DFW10 and DFW 11, are expected to bring a total of 180 megawatts of power within about 600,000 square feet of space.
"This is our single biggest deal to date," DataBank President and Chief Financial Officer Kevin Ooley told CoStar News. "We have done so many issuances over time that collectively have been larger, but this is our largest one."
The deal took six months for Dallas-based DataBank to put together, Ooley said.
Like many financing agreements, the deal was centered on a single tenant having leased three buildings in DataBank's initial phase of the campus. The undisclosed tenant is an "investment-grade technology firm" that was secured in mid-2025, Ooley said. Ooley declined further comment about the tenant.
The Red Oak campus is DataBank's largest by both megawatts and acreage with the entire 292-acre, eight-building data center campus expected to bring 480 megawatts of power to the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the nation's fourth-largest metropolitan area.
The region already houses eight of DataBank's data centers. In all, DataBank has 76 data centers in 26 U.S. markets and in the United Kingdom.
Financing has played a big role in DataBank's growth. In the past year, DataBank has landed a total of $4.7 billion in funds, including increasing its credit facility to $1.6 billion and raising $1.1 billion to refinance three of its existing U.S. data centers.
The newly secured financing accelerates the delivery timeline of the campus with the first data center building scheduled to be operational before year's end, Ooley said, adding this beats previous delivery timelines by about 18 months.
The initial phase of the Red Oak project totals four buildings, with a second phase comprising four buildings at the campus. Each data center building is expected to be two stories in height. Ooley had no immediate construction timeline to offer CoStar News.
Previously, Ooley told CoStar News that AI usage was driving demand for new data center development at DataBank and its rivals. And the ability to access billions of dollars in funding gives DataBank a leg up in a competitive industry, he said.
This latest loan fits into DataBank's green financing initiative, mandating the data center facilities meet certain power usage metrics for water conservation and carbon emissions reduction, with the firm having a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030.
For the record
MUFG Bank Ltd. was the coordinating lead arranger, administrative agent and sole bookrunner on the deal. It led a group of digital infrastructure banks and institutional investors, DataBank officials said. Davis Polk served as DataBank's legal adviser in the deal. DataBank's general contractors at the Red Oak campus include Rogers O'Brien Construction and Yates Construction.