Summary
- The Unterschleissheim site has a 30MVA power position and a building permit.
- PGIM acquired the property in 2024 before progressing it as a data centre development.
- The permitted scheme targets a PUE of 1.2 and has German environmental approvals.
PGIM has sold a powered and permitted data centre development in Unterschleissheim, Greater Munich, to a European infrastructure investor.
The investment manager acquired the property in 2024 through its European Value Partners II fund and has since progressed it towards a buildable data centre development.
The site has a 30MVA power position, a building permit for a scheme targeting power usage effectiveness of 1.2, and approvals under Germany’s Federal Immission Control Act.
The buyer and transaction value were not disclosed.
Planning and power create development value
The sale illustrates the growing distinction between speculative land and sites where developers have already completed substantial work around electricity and permitting.
Those early stages can account for years of a data centre programme in constrained European markets. Grid studies, utility agreements, environmental approvals, building permits, and detailed site design all have to progress before construction can begin with confidence.
Nabil Mabed, head of value add Europe at PGIM Real Estate, said: “The sale of this Munich site crystallises the value created through securing planning consent and grid connection.”
The 30MVA figure describes the electrical development rather than a stated IT load. The amount ultimately available to servers will depend on the facility design, redundancy architecture, cooling equipment, and other auxiliary loads.
Likewise, the PUE figure is a permitted design target rather than measured operational performance. Actual efficiency will only become clear if the facility is built, commissioned, occupied, and operated under live loads.
Munich combines corporate and industrial demand with international fibre infrastructure, but developers still face the physical limits affecting other major German markets: suitable sites, grid access, equipment lead times, and regulatory scrutiny.
That creates a market for sites where some of those risks have already been reduced. A buyer can acquire a more mature project rather than beginning with raw land and an uncertain power pathway.
Construction risk now transfers to the buyer
The transaction does not mean the facility itself has been delivered.
The new owner will still need to finance and procure construction, complete utility works, secure customers, install electrical and mechanical plant, commission the building, and bring the site into operation.
Equipment availability can remain a constraint even after permitting. Transformers, switchgear, generators, cooling equipment, and other high-capacity systems are increasingly ordered well ahead of installation.
PGIM’s exit therefore captures value at a particular point in the development chain: after planning and power risk have been reduced, but before the capital-intensive construction and operating phases.
As electricity availability becomes harder to secure in established European markets, transactions involving genuinely powered and permitted developments offer a clearer signal of site value than land marketed on the basis of future data centre potential alone.
