Kirkland & Ellis advised Blue Owl funds on the closing of a $3.4 billion joint venture with Crusoe Energy to fund the development of a 206-megawatt data center in Abilene, Texas, which is expected to serve as a key site for Project Stargate, an estimated $500 billion federal government initiative aimed at establishing AI infrastructure across the U.S. Primary Digital Infrastructure facilitated and advised on the transaction.
Kirkland also advised the joint venture on a $2.3 billion construction loan financing to develop the project, arranged by JPMorgan Chase.
The project has been 100% long-term leased to a Fortune 100 hyperscale tenant. Other features include 300 MW of on-site self-generation, furthering the ability for the sponsorship to deliver large scale, clean capacity to its customers. It is expected to contribute nearly $1 billion to the local economy over the next 20 years, as estimated by the Development Corporation of Abilene.
These are among several recent transactions exemplifying Blue Owl’s commitment to meeting rapid growth in demand for digital infrastructure, including Blue Owl’s JV with Chirisa Technology Parks and PowerHouse Data Centers and $600 million loan arrangement to capitalize a 50 megawatt build-to-suit data center development in Northern Virginia for a leading hyperscaler. Kirkland also recently represented Blue Owl on its acquisition of IPI Partners, a digital infrastructure fund manager founded to service the needs of large, high-quality hyperscale and enterprise datacenter users.
The Kirkland team advising on the JVs included real estate lawyers David Rosenberg, Andy Van Noord, David Stanek and Tam Ho.
The Kirkland team advising on financings included real estate finance lawyers Kim McGrath and Kevin Donahue; and debt finance lawyers Roald Nashi, Linda Zang and Greg Howling.
