Why Northeast Ohio is a market
This region has an old economy and it built the kind of customer base that fills enterprise data centers. Manufacturing, insurance, banking, a very large health system, universities and a dense middle market. That demand was here long before anyone used the phrase AI capacity, and it is what the buildings below were built to serve.
The geography helps more than it looks. Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown sit within about seventy miles of each other along the same corridor, so a requirement in one of them can realistically be shopped across all four. That is why this page is written for the region rather than for Cleveland alone: treating Cleveland as the market would ignore roughly half the buildings a buyer can actually reach.
Risk is the third argument and it is a real one. There is no seismic exposure worth planning for, no hurricane season, and the region sits inside PJM with plenty of water. For an organization looking for an eastern site that is not correlated with Northern Virginia or the coast, Northeast Ohio is genuinely independent of both and is a short flight or a day's drive from either.
What it is not is a growth story. Read the announced section below before you build a plan around new supply here.
Buying power here is not the same as buying it in Columbus
Ohio deregulated its electricity market in 2001, so generation is competitive and delivery stays with the local utility. That is the same across the state. What is not the same is which utility, and it changes the terms materially.
Columbus is AEP Ohio. Cleveland and Akron are the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison, both FirstEnergy. Cleveland also has a city-owned utility, Cleveland Public Power, which competes with CEI inside the city, downtown included. The data center tariff that has shaped every conversation about Ohio, the one requiring new data centers above 25 MW to pay for at least 85 percent of their forecast monthly energy whether or not they use it, is an AEP Ohio tariff. It does not apply in this region. In June 2026 the FirstEnergy utilities filed a proposal for a data center tariff of their own, and its terms are not settled.
Three questions follow, and they are worth asking in this order. Which utility serves the building, and inside Cleveland that can be Cleveland Public Power rather than CEI. Whether the operator buys generation on a competitive contract or sits on utility default service, because that determines whose price you are actually being quoted. And whether any minimum-take obligation, existing or proposed, would be passed through to you. An operator here who has not thought about the pending FirstEnergy filing is an operator who may reprice you.
Ask what the building's committed utility capacity is today, not what the campus is designed for. This region's stock is largely converted and infill, which is exactly the kind of building where the design figure and the energized figure diverge. Then ask what a step up to your next increment would require and who queues for it. In a market where the largest new-build proposal was refused, the practical ceiling on your growth is whatever the existing buildings already have in the ground.
Three do, and they are unusually lopsided here. The interconnection layer is the strongest thing on this page and is drawn from PeeringDB, which the network operators maintain themselves, so every row links to the building's own public entry. The announced layer is here, collected by hand, and is one project. The permit layer is here and is the weakest of the three: two filings, neither of them dated, neither naming an operator we can identify, because the source is a register of operating facilities rather than a stream of new applications. The fourth is not here at all: our verified facility inventory does not extend to this region, so there is no building count on this page and no zero standing in for one. See how we verify capacity for what each collection proves.
Who is actually plugged in across Cleveland, Akron and Northeast Ohio
A building existing and a building being connected are different facts, and only one of them decides whether your traffic can get where it needs to go cheaply. These figures come from PeeringDB, which the network operators themselves maintain, so every row below links to the building's own public entry.
| Measure | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings listed | 20 | Registered in PeeringDB across Cleveland, Akron and Northeast Ohio, by 13 operators |
| Buildings with a network present | 14 | 6 carry no network presence, which usually means single tenant or simply unregistered |
| Network presences | 55 | Counted per building, so a carrier in three buildings counts three times |
| Internet exchange presences | 9 | Where you can reach many networks through one port instead of many cross-connects |
| Carrier presences | 10 | The physical transport choice you can buy without leaving the building |
| In the densest building | 36% | H5 Data Centers Cleveland holds 20 of the market's network presences |
The most connected buildings here
| Networks | Building | Operator | Exchanges | Carriers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | H5 Data Centers Cleveland | H5 Data Centers | 5 | 3 |
| 8 | Fusion - Cleveland | Fusion Connect | 1 | 0 |
| 5 | ark data centers - Akron,OH | ark data centers | 2 | 1 |
| 4 | ark data centers - Canton,OH | ark data centers | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | DataBank Cleveland (CLE1) | DataBank, Ltd. | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | Expedient Cleveland - 151 NEO | Expedient | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | ark data centers - Youngstown, OH | ark data centers | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Expedient Cleveland - 152 NEO | Expedient | 0 | 1 |
From PeeringDB, which is maintained by the network operators present in these buildings rather than by the landlords, which is what makes it worth more than a directory. Two limits. Entries are voluntary, so a building showing no networks may be single tenant or may simply never have registered. And a network being present says nothing about whether the building has space, power or a price for you: that is still a call.
What has been announced in Cleveland, Akron and Northeast Ohio
Announcements are not filings. Nobody has to build what they announce, the figure is the one the developer chose to publish, and the date moves. They are here because megawatts are what a requirement is measured in, and because the size of what is coming changes who will take your call. Every figure below links to a published report that states it, and was checked against at least one other independent report before it was written down.
| Capacity | Operator | Project | What was announced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 150 MW | Lakeland Equity Group | 3560 East 55th Street, Slavic Village | Westlake-based Lakeland Equity Group filed plans on 5 May 2026 for a $1.6 billion, 150 MW campus on 35 acres at 3560 East 55th Street, the former Morabito Enterprises trucking site. It would have been the first hyperscale data center in the city. Reports describe the building programme two different ways and the row does not pick between them: some describe a three-building campus, others a single 300,000 square foot two-storey facility. What is not in dispute is what happened next. The City of Cleveland rejected the permit application on 14 May 2026, with the mayor citing serious concerns about standalone hyperscale data centers in neighborhoods, and a one-year citywide moratorium had been introduced at council the week before. Treat this row as a market signal rather than as coming supply. Announced campus capacity, on an application the city has since rejected |
One announced project, and the city refused it. That is the most important fact about announced capacity in Cleveland and it is worth more to a buyer than the 150 MW figure itself: the largest data center proposal this market has seen was rejected within nine days of being filed, and on 15 July 2026 the city council passed a three-month pause on new standalone data centers, running to 16 October with an option to extend it by three months. A requirement that needs a new-build campus in Cleveland proper should be scoped with that in mind, and should be tested in Akron, Canton and the suburbs as well, which sit under different councils. Nothing else in Northeast Ohio has a published megawatt figure. The market a buyer can reach today is the twenty interconnected buildings below, which are enterprise and network colocation rather than hyperscale, and none of what is described here changes that. Read the reporting.
Announced capacity is collected by hand from trade reporting and company statements, and each figure links to the report it came from. It is kept apart from the permit record below and never added to it: one is a document a jurisdiction issued, the other is a plan a company published. Neither is availability.
What providers in Cleveland post as a list price
Most colocation in Cleveland is quoted, not posted. The provider below is the exception: it publishes a monthly price on its own website, and every row links to that page. It is a smaller regional operator. The large operators here do not publish prices at all, so read these as a floor and a sanity check, not as what an enterprise contract lands at.
| Monthly | Provider | Offer | Power included | Per usable kW | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $999 | LightSpeed Hosting | Full rack. Medina, Ohio | 20A circuit, 110V to 208V | Power not stated | Priced separately |
Each price was read on the provider's own page on the date shown. Usable kW is 80% of the circuit rating, with a redundant A+B pair counted once, and is only worked out where the provider states both amps and volts. "From" is the provider's own word for a starting price. Providers whose networks carry spam or abuse flags are left out whatever their price. A posted price is not availability, and bundles differ in bandwidth and power, so compare the whole row rather than the first column. How power is billed is covered in how colocation power is billed.
Send it over and a scout will tell you how it compares with these posted prices and with the published benchmarks for this market. There is no obligation.
What the public construction record shows, and why there is so little of it
Two filings. That is not a market that has stopped building so much as a source that was never designed to show building. Our Ohio permit layer comes from the federal air facility register, which lists sites that hold an air permit and operate, not applications as they are made. It carries no filing date and, for these two rows, no operator we can put a name to. Read the count below as confirmation that two more sites exist in this region, and read nothing else into it. The interconnection table above is the evidence on this page that is worth weight.
Ohio air permits in the Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown corridor. Every figure below is a count of filings we collected ourselves, and every row links to the record it came from.
| Measure | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Filings we track | 3 | Deduplicated. One source, which publishes no filing dates |
| Distinct addresses | 2 | Separate sites in the record, not separate buildings |
| Operators we can name | None | Every filing names an engineer, a builder or a holding company |
| Filings with no date published | 3 | The source publishes the facility, not the filing date |
The filings on the record
| Filed | Named on the filing | What it says | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| No date published | Not an identifiable operator | Ark Data Centers | Power and cooling |
| No date published | Not an identifiable operator | Rosebud Data Center | Power and cooling |
| No date published | Not an identifiable operator | Rosebud Data Center | Power and cooling |
Collected from EPA ECHO air facility records for Ohio. A permit or air-register entry documents a site or proposed work. It does not establish current construction or available space, and no public filing anywhere discloses what is contractible at a named building. That answer comes from an operator call, which is the part we do by hand. See how we verify capacity.
Where the market actually is
Downtown Cleveland
Where the interconnection is concentrated. One building holds a third of the region's network presences on its own and carries most of its exchange presences, and DataBank, Expedient, Fusion, Zayo, Cogent and T5 all hold listed buildings in the city alongside it. A network-led requirement starts here and probably ends here.
Akron and Summit County
The second cluster. It is a smaller ecosystem than downtown Cleveland but it is a real one, and it is close enough to Cleveland to be a credible second site inside the same metro.
Canton and Youngstown
Thin but not empty. Three listed buildings in Canton and one in Youngstown, low network counts, and the same operator present in both. Worth scoping only if you have people or plant in those cities, because the interconnection there will not carry a requirement on its own.
The suburbs, and why they matter now
Independence, Mayfield Heights and Medina each carry a listed building. That matters more than the counts suggest: the city rejected the one hyperscale proposal it received, then passed a three-month pause on new standalone data centers on 15 July 2026. It runs to 16 October 2026, and council can extend it by up to three more months. None of those decisions binds the suburbs. If new supply arrives in this region, this is where to expect it.
When Northeast Ohio is right, and when it is the wrong choice
It is right when your requirement is network led or enterprise sized and you have a reason to be in Ohio. Fifty-five network presences across thirteen operators is a working ecosystem, the buildings are established, and pricing in this region has never had to compete with hyperscale demand for the same halls. It is also a sound second or third site for an organization already in Chicago or Columbus, close enough to manage and far enough to be independent.
It is the wrong choice if you need scale or a delivery date on new construction. The one campus anyone proposed was refused. The city has paused new standalone data centers until at least 16 October 2026. Nothing else here has a published megawatt figure. A requirement that needs tens of megawatts in one hall, with room to double, should be tested against Columbus first, which is about two hours south and is one of the largest construction markets in the country.
It is also the wrong choice if you were planning to buy on the assumption that Ohio means the AEP tariff. It does not, here. That cuts both ways, and it is a term to read rather than a reason to prefer or avoid the region.
Ask which utility serves the building, FirstEnergy or Cleveland Public Power, and how the operator buys generation, then ask what the pending FirstEnergy data center tariff would do to your rate if approved as filed. Ask for committed and energized capacity separately from design capacity. Because much of the good space here is converted industrial and office stock, ask about floor loading, clear height and slab condition before you talk about density, and ask what the building's cooling can actually sustain rather than what it is rated for. If interconnection is why you are here, name the networks you need and make the operator confirm they are present in that building rather than in the metro. And if anyone quotes you the Cleveland hyperscale campus as evidence of a growing market, ask them what happened to its permit.
Pricing context. The posted price above is one provider's list rate. It is not a quote, and it is not availability. For the nearest market with a pricing guide, see Columbus colocation pricing. The cost estimator gives an illustrative range based on Ashburn. Use it as a reference point, not a local price.