Joe Cangas, MD, Commercial Agent CARR

Joe Cangas, MD, Commercial Agent CARR Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Joe Cangas, MD, Commercial Agent CARR, Estate agent, St. Louis, MO.

I advise healthcare practice owners through lease renewals, relocations, expansions, and office purchases—exclusively representing tenants and buyers, never landlords—so real estate supports the practice instead of quietly draining it.

Why Does a Data Center Need Its Own Substation?A large data center can use as much electricity as a small city, but the ...
09/24/2026

Why Does a Data Center Need Its Own Substation?

A large data center can use as much electricity as a small city, but the power does not arrive at the building ready to use.

Electricity travels long distances at very high voltage because that is the efficient way to move a lot of power. Before it can feed servers, cooling equipment, pumps, lighting, and everything else on the site, that voltage has to be stepped down.

That is what the substation does.

For example, a transmission line might carry power at 138 kV or 345 kV. The substation uses large transformers to reduce that voltage before it is distributed around the campus.

On a big data center project, the substation can be a major piece of the development. It needs land, transmission access, transformers, switchgear, protective equipment, and sometimes new transmission lines just to connect the site to the grid.

And transformers are not sitting on a shelf waiting to be delivered. Large power transformers can take well over a year to manufacture, and in tight markets the wait can be considerably longer.

That is one reason a data center can have the land, permits, and money to build but still sit waiting for power.

Why Do Data Centers Get Tax Breaks?Because states and cities compete hard for them.A data center can bring billions in i...
09/20/2026

Why Do Data Centers Get Tax Breaks?

Because states and cities compete hard for them.

A data center can bring billions in investment, a large construction project, and years of tax revenue. That gives developers leverage when they are deciding between several locations.

The incentives usually come from a few places: sales-tax exemptions on servers and equipment, property-tax abatements, or negotiated local agreements that reduce taxes for a set number of years.

Here is where the numbers get interesting. A data center may have a very expensive building, but a huge amount of the investment is in equipment inside it. Servers, electrical systems, cooling equipment, batteries, and networking gear can represent hundreds of millions of dollars. Exempting that equipment from sales tax can be worth a lot of money.

Property-tax abatements can be even bigger over time. If a project would otherwise generate $20 million a year in property taxes and receives a 50% abatement, that is a $10 million annual incentive.

That does not automatically make the deal bad. The question is whether the community is still getting enough tax revenue, jobs, infrastructure investment, and long-term value to justify what it gave up.

What Happens to a Data Center When the Power Goes Out?A data center cannot just shut down and wait for the utility to co...
09/19/2026

What Happens to a Data Center When the Power Goes Out?

A data center cannot just shut down and wait for the utility to come back.

Most facilities use battery-based UPS systems that take over almost immediately if grid power drops. Those batteries are there to bridge the short gap until backup generators start, usually within seconds.

Large campuses may have dozens of generators and substantial fuel storage on site. Many are also built with redundancy, often described as N+1. In simple terms, if the facility needs four generators to carry the load, there may be a fifth available if one fails.

The same idea can apply to cooling equipment, pumps, and other critical systems.

Those generators are one reason data centers come up in conversations about noise and air quality. They may sit idle most of the time, but they still have to be tested, and during a prolonged outage they can run for hours or longer.

For most of us, a brief power outage is an inconvenience. For a data center, even a few seconds can interrupt services being used by people all over the country.

How Noisy Can a Data Center Be?Most of the time, a data center is not especially loud from a distance. The steady equipm...
09/19/2026

How Noisy Can a Data Center Be?

Most of the time, a data center is not especially loud from a distance. The steady equipment noise from cooling systems, pumps, and transformers is often in the range of normal conversation to busy traffic when you are fairly close to the equipment.

Backup generators are different. During testing or an outage, they can be much louder. Large generator systems may produce sound in roughly the 70–85 dBA range nearby, depending on the enclosure and sound attenuation.

For comparison, normal conversation is around 60 dBA. A vacuum cleaner is around 70 dBA. Heavy city traffic can be around 80–85 dBA.

The bigger issue on a large campus is that there may be many generators, cooling units, and fans running at the same time. That is why the number that really tells you something is the projected sound level at the property line and at the nearest homes.

Distance, berms, sound walls, building placement, and equipment orientation can all reduce what neighbors hear.

A lot of people assume that if a data center uses enormous amounts of electricity and water, residential customers will ...
09/17/2026

A lot of people assume that if a data center uses enormous amounts of electricity and water, residential customers will end up paying more.

That can happen, but it is not automatic.

Large data centers usually pay commercial or industrial utility rates, and they can also be required to pay for dedicated substations, transmission upgrades, water lines, sewer improvements, or other infrastructure needed specifically for the project.

The concern starts when some of those costs get spread across the utility system instead of being charged directly to the new customer.

Electric utilities often recover major infrastructure costs through rates over many years. If a utility builds expensive new generation, transmission, or substations for a data center and the project never reaches the expected load—or leaves later—other customers can be left helping pay for infrastructure that was built for that project.

Water systems have a similar issue. A new data center may pay connection fees and usage charges, but if the city has to expand treatment capacity, wells, pumps, or water mains, the question is how those costs are allocated.

There is another side to it. A very large customer paying millions of dollars a year in utility bills can help spread fixed system costs over more users. If the rates and contracts are structured correctly, that can be good for the utility system rather than bad for residential customers.

So the real issue is not simply how much electricity or water the data center uses. It is who pays for the infrastructure needed to serve it, what happens if the project uses less than expected, and whether residential customers are protected from those costs.

How Much Water Does a Data Center Use?There is no single answer because the cooling system makes a huge difference.Serve...
09/16/2026

How Much Water Does a Data Center Use?

There is no single answer because the cooling system makes a huge difference.

Servers produce heat around the clock. Some data centers remove that heat mostly with air. Others use evaporative cooling, where water helps cool the facility. Large evaporative-cooled sites can use hundreds of thousands of gallons per day, and some can exceed a million gallons on hot days.

Newer AI facilities are changing the picture again. High-density AI equipment produces much more heat in a smaller space, which is pushing more projects toward liquid cooling.

The tradeoff is fairly simple: systems that use less water may use more electricity, while evaporative systems can reduce energy use but consume more water.

That is why two data centers of similar size can have very different water demands.

How Much Electricity Does a Data Center Use?When somebody says a data center will need 100 megawatts, that number is alm...
09/15/2026

How Much Electricity Does a Data Center Use?

When somebody says a data center will need 100 megawatts, that number is almost meaningless unless you work around utilities.

Here is a better way to picture it.

If a 100-megawatt facility ran at full load around the clock, it would use about 876 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year. That is roughly what 80,000 average U.S. homes use.

And 100 megawatts is not especially large for some of the projects being proposed now. Hyperscale and AI campuses can be several hundred megawatts. Some planned campuses eventually approach 1,000 megawatts — one gigawatt.

That is why these projects can require new substations, transmission lines, or additional power generation. You are not just plugging a big building into the nearest power line.

That gives some perspective when you hear 100 MW, 500 MW, or 1 GW attached to a project.

Data Center Jobs: What Do the Numbers Really Mean?A data center can cost billions of dollars to build and still employ a...
09/14/2026

Data Center Jobs: What Do the Numbers Really Mean?

A data center can cost billions of dollars to build and still employ a relatively small number of people once it is finished.

During construction, there may be hundreds or even thousands of workers involved. Electricians, HVAC crews, concrete workers, equipment operators, engineers, security, and other contractors may be on the project for several years, especially if the campus is built in phases.

After construction, staffing drops substantially. The permanent jobs tend to be more specialized: technicians, electricians, network engineers, facilities staff, security, and management.

That distinction is important when you hear a jobs number attached to one of these projects. A company may announce 1,000 jobs, but that could mean 900 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs. Or it could mean something completely different.

If you want to understand what a data center will do for the local job market, look for the permanent employment number, the expected salaries, and whether there are commitments to hire locally.

Not All Data Centers Are the SameWhen someone says a data center is coming to town, that tells you about as much as sayi...
09/13/2026

Not All Data Centers Are the Same

When someone says a data center is coming to town, that tells you about as much as saying a factory is coming to town. What kind? How big? What is it doing inside?

A company may have a relatively small data center for its own records and software. A colocation facility can house equipment for dozens or hundreds of different companies. Hyperscale campuses run cloud services for companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta and can include several huge buildings. AI facilities can pack far more computing power into the same space, which can dramatically increase the electricity and cooling required.

Even the equipment inside makes a big difference. A traditional server rack might use 5–15 kilowatts. Some newer AI racks can use 100 kilowatts or more. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of racks and you can see why one project might fit into the existing utility system while another requires new substations, transmission lines, or major power generation.

Cooling varies just as much. Some facilities rely mostly on air cooling. Others use evaporative cooling and significant amounts of water. High-density AI equipment is also pushing more facilities toward liquid cooling.

So when you see a story saying data centers use too much water, create very few jobs, or require enormous amounts of electricity, check what kind of data center they are talking about. Those numbers can be completely different from one project to another.

MYTH: Every new data center is an AI data center.AI is a big reason we’re seeing so much new data center development, bu...
09/11/2026

MYTH: Every new data center is an AI data center.

AI is a big reason we’re seeing so much new data center development, but it’s not the only reason.

Data centers also run banking systems, medical records, streaming services, cloud software, backups, websites, and the technology businesses use every day.

An AI-focused facility can need far more electricity and cooling than a traditional data center. That means two buildings that look almost identical from the road can have very different demands on the grid and surrounding infrastructure.

So before lumping every new project into the AI category, look at what is being built, what it will be used for, and how much power the full campus is expected to need.

Next: Data centers and cryptocurrency mining. They get compared a lot, but they are not the same thing.

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