Brain's new firm teams with Black & Veatch on $1.6B data center campus

By Rob Roberts  – Reporter, Kansas City Business Journal
May 2, 2018, 12:57pm CDT Updated May 2, 2018, 3:03pm

Enfinite Capital and Diode Ventures, a Black & Veatch company, have been selected to finance, operate and maintain a $1.6 billion data center campus being developed in northern Virginia by Alberta, Canada-based PointOne Development Corp.

In announcing his creation of a new firm to help deliver turnkey green-energy and other business solutions last January, David Brain noted that Enfinite Capital LLC might be better poised for success than the public company he co-founded 20 years ago.

That was a bold claim given the current $4.1 billion market capitalization of EPR Properties (NYSE: EPR), where Brain retired as CEO three years ago. But based on Tuesday's announcement of Enfinite Capital's first major deal, Brain, its CEO, appears to be right on the money.

According to the announcement, Enfinite Capital and Diode Ventures LLC, a Black & Veatch company, have been selected to finance, operate and maintain a $1.6 billion data center campus being developed by Alberta, Canada-based PointOne Development Corp. The six data center campus, branded Remington Technology Park, is being developed on 234 acres in Fauquier County, Va., part of a region fast emerging as the United States' internet hub. Overland Park-based Black & Veatch, a market leader in the design and deployment of data centers, has been hired to provide design-build services.

Looking to satisfy the growing global demand for build-to-suit, mission-critical infrastructure, PointOne chose Diode Ventures as its strategic execution partner to accelerate the development and construction of Remington Technology Park. According to a release from Black & Veatch, the park will offer modular mechanical data center infrastructure, market-leading operating efficiencies and competitive lease rates.

Diode Ventures, in conjunction with Enfinite Capital, helped to secure initial funding for the project and will continue to provide financial modeling support and capital assembly for the balance of the project, the release states.

"The Remington Technology Park is the kind of project that can offer attractive opportunities for investors seeking consistent returns in an era of historically low interest rates and increasing market uncertainty," Brain said in the release. "We're pleased to be part of this alliance with PointOne Development, Black & Veatch and Diode Ventures (and) to pair this innovative approach to project finance with a trusted design-build execution team."

Enfinite Capital is a Kansas City investment and asset management firm specializing in renewable energy, infrastructure and real estate assets. It primarily serves the large-scale commercial and industrial markets, providing program-focused, turnkey funding, development and acquisitions.

Diode Ventures offers asset-development solutions for clients in the energy, telecom, data center and other sectors that are looking for a partner able to implement large-scale infrastructure projects while reducing risk.

"Diode Ventures is excited to partner with the PointOne team on this enterprise-scale data center project," Brad Hardin, president of Diode Ventures, said in the release. "We believe there is tremendous growth in the data center market. By bringing capital and early-stage development services, we are delivering on our mission to expand the global opportunity base for Diode Ventures; our partner Enfinite Capital; and our parent company, Black & Veatch."

The hyperscale data center, which will include six facilities of roughly 200,000 square feet each, was conceived in response to rising demands for cloud storage in the age of Big Data, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

As part of its design-build role, Black & Veatch will develop a 300-megawatt power generation facility supporting Remington Technology Park.

Site advantages of the project include a location within the region's "Data Center Alley," through which an estimated 70 percent of the world's internet traffic flows, as well as infrastructure availability and campus customization opportunities.

Remington Technology Park will offer abundant connectivity to terrestrial and undersea fiber-optic cables and marks PointOne's initial foray into the U.S. data center market.

"PointOne's forward-thinking push to develop the Remington Technology Park meshes with our proven expertise and track record of making such ambitious projects a reality," Wesley Denton, managing director of Black & Veatch's data center business unit, said in the release. "Black & Veatch stands poised to provide innovative and scalable infrastructure solutions to make this fully integrated, hyper-scale data center project stand out in a region synonymous with data centers."

Diode Ventures, Enfinite Capital partner to provide turnkey solutions for infrastructure projects

New company Diode offers simplified, sustainable path for commercial, industrial projects

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., April 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diode Ventures, a new company aimed at helping finance and implement large-scale infrastructure projects, announced today it has begun offering those innovative turnkey asset-development solutions for industrial, commercial and technology clients around the world.

Diode Ventures’ arrival is in response to growing client demand for turnkey asset-development services, including sourcing capital. With alliance partner Enfinite Capital providing competitive financing support, Diode Ventures provides clients with access to comprehensive engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) capabilities, as well as operations and maintenance expertise.

Infrastructure development clients, including energy, telecommunications, data centers, food infrastructure and more, select Diode Ventures to be their project’s full-service provider from financing origination through construction completion and permanent financing. This enables clients to focus on growing their core businesses while Diode Ventures pulls together all of the required pieces of a client’s project regardless of scale.

Diode’s infrastructure applications focus on helping clients deploy capital to meet their growth goals and align with strategic business needs. For instance, if a corporate client wanted renewable energy, Diode Ventures will locate a site, guide the regulatory permitting process and provide construction management service through its conclusion. After the successful facility completion, a Diode subcontractor will provide operations and maintenance services.

“Clients can entrust Diode Ventures with managing their infrastructure portfolio from the design phase through construction and startup. They can think of us as an extension of their staff as we provide the necessary expertise to allow them to focus on scaling their business,” said Brad Hardin, President of Diode Ventures. “By listening to our clients and understanding their goals, we are building something scalable and sustainable tailored to their needs.”

“Enfinite Capital is honored and pleased to work with the world-class resources of Diode to provide a fully-financed turn-key solution for clients to satisfy their infrastructure needs without taking resources away from their primary business functions,” added David Brain, Enfinite’s CEO.

Diode Media Contact Information:

JIM SUHR| +1 913-458-6995 P | +1 314-422-6927 M | media@diodeventures.com

About Diode Ventures

Diode Ventures provides turnkey, end-to-end solutions for industrial, commercial and technology interests, including data centers and green energy solutions. Our services include full financing, site selection, EPC, commissioning, and O&M. For more information, see www.diodeventures.com.

About Enfinite Capital

Enfinite Capital is an investment and asset management firm specializing in renewable energy, infrastructure and real estate assets. Enfinite Capital primarily serves the large-scale, commercial and industrial (C&I) markets providing program focused, turn-key funding, development and acquisitions. Enfinite Capital investments are uniquely developed in partnership with the end users and are characterized by high barriers to competition and attractive returns. Further information is available at www.EnfiniteCapital.com. 

David Brain has a new green-energy gig and high expectations for it

By Rob Roberts  – Reporter, Kansas City Business Journal
Jan 25, 2018, 2:31pm

Ever since David Brain announced his retirement from EPR Properties at age 58 three years ago, the Kansas City business community has been wondering what his next big gig might be.

Now, there’s an answer.

Brain, who co-founded EPR (NYSE: EPR) in 1997 and was CEO of the entertainment-focused real estate investment trust from 1999 until 2015, is now co-founder and CEO of Enfinite Capital.

The Kansas City startup has partnered with Black & Veatch, a global engineering and construction firm based in Overland Park, to provide turnkey green-energy solutions for commercial and industrial firms with facilities that consume substantial amounts of power.

“The focus is very much solar,” Brain said of his new enterprise, “and it’ll be global.”

Lots of potential power

The plan, he said, is for Enfinite Capital to develop, finance and lease solar panel farms of close to 1,000 acres to produce something on the order of 100 megawatts for clients’ facilities.

To give an idea of how much electricity that is, 100 megawatts is enough to power 16,400 homes. But Brain isn’t focusing on residential rooftops.

“The genesis of this is really to respond to a highly articulated need of commercial and industrial companies for a turnkey solution for green energy initiatives,” he said. “There are a number of people addressing the residential market, and there are a number of people addressing what’s considered the utility-scale market.

“But there aren’t a lot of people addressing the commercial and industrial need from the client perspective by going to the client and finding out what they need and when, and then being a build-to-suit developer with financing on a turnkey basis for those clients.”

Enfinite Capital will develop solar farms within 15 miles of client facilities, Brain said, and clients will enter into 15- to 20-year power purchase agreements, tantamount to long-term leases, with Enfinite.

“We’re not retrofitting buildings,” Brain said. “We’re just changing the power supply to the buildings. We’re not taking them off the grid entirely. We’re just developing a private supplementary power system that is long-term cost controlled, strategically controlled, and is of high interest to these customers because they’ve generally made commitments to go green, to shift to renewable energy.

“Most of these companies that have made those commitments, however, don’t have a clear, easy path to do that. So we’re helping them construct that path.”

A key alliance

Brain said his new firm has formed a strategic alliance with Black & Veatch.

“They have all the capabilities of delivering every element of these facilities — engineering, construction management, operations and maintenance,” Brian said. “But Black & Veatch is not capitalized to be a lessor developer, to be an owner during the (power purchase agreement) period. So that’s what we’re doing.

“It’s very much equivalent to the way EPR Properties was set up as an off-balance-sheet financing vehicle for AMC Entertainment, which was a first-party user of the (theater) facilities we developed and leased to them.”

By the time Brain left EPR, which grew to specialize in entertainment, recreational and educational assets, the firm had a market capitalization of more than $5 billion and total investment in excess of $4 billion. But in announcing his retirement, Brain said “sometimes it’s good to do something new.”

Unlike EPR, his new venture cannot be a REIT because its green-energy projects will be considered personal property, not real property.

“But it might become more equivalent to a master limited partnership,” Brain said of Enfinite, “so it could be similar to a REIT.”

Asked whether it could grow into a public company on the order of EPR, Brain added that “it could.”

“I don’t want to have expectations at this time,” he said, “but the opportunity set is arguably substantially bigger than it was for EPR at the beginning.”

Looking to the future

Brain said he didn’t want to reveal revenue projections until Enfinite announces its first projects. But that shouldn't be far off, he added, because Enfinite already is working with several clients nationally and internationally that have identified facilities they want the firm to develop turnkey green-energy solutions for.

Assisting Brain as Enfinite’s COO is Shane Spencer, an independent fund manager and capital formation consultant who manages four area funds: The Collective Funds, Angel Capital Group | Kansas City, Green REIT and Petro Royalty Partners.

“I originally met Shane back in his days in graduate school at UMKC, where I’ve been involved in the mentoring program,” Brain said.

Brain, Spencer and a couple of contract employees are working out of coworking space that Enfinite has leased at the Westport Commons location for Plexpod, a Kansas City-area coworking space provider that Brain recently joined as a partner.

Brain also is a member of Sustainable Development Partners LLC, which bought the two former school properties that make up Westport Commons — Westport High and Westport Middle School — which it is turning into the world’s largest coworking facility, larger office space and apartments via a $50 million-plus redevelopment project.

In addition, Brain serves on the board of Maxus Realty Trust Inc., a locally based REIT that has been making headlines with its recent apartment acquisition spree.

But make no mistake, Brain said, his new gig at Enfinite will be taking up the lion’s share of his time and energy as he focuses on creating another roaring success in the Kansas City business community.