Blue Owl, Chirisa, and Machine Investment close $4 billion joint venture
Blue Owl is funding the development of CoreWeave’s planned data center campus in Pennsylvania.
Funds managed by Blue Owl Capital, affiliates of Chirisa Technology Parks (CTP), and Machine Investment Group (MIG) this week closed on a joint venture partnership to include $4 billion of funding for the previously announced CoreWeave developments in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
CoreWeave has invested in the campus and will lease the site.
Blue Owl aims to fund up to $20bn of developments for CTP, extending the existing partnership between the two groups, which currently supports almost 500MW of new developments underway in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Marc Zahr, co-president and global head of real assets at Blue Owl, said: "This expanded partnership with CoreWeave, Chirisa Technology Parks, and Machine Investment Group marks a significant step forward in building the mission-critical infrastructure that will power the future of AI innovation. CoreWeave's cutting-edge GPU as a service capability, combined with CTP's deep expertise in AI data center development, make this a uniquely powerful alliance, all supported by Blue Owl's differentiated scale and structuring capabilities."
David Kelly, managing director North America at CTP, added: "Our Lancaster development with Blue Owl and Machine Investment Group underscores our partnership's deep commitment to building sustainable, high-performance digital campuses while creating real opportunity for the communities where we operate. We believe that the deployment of AI infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with inclusive economic growth — bringing high-quality jobs, educational partnerships, and valuable opportunities for residents and families living in Pennsylvania to participate in the AI ecosystem."
Lancaster is located West of Philadelphia, one of Pennsylvania's largest data center markets after Pittsburgh. Lumen operates a data center in Lancaster. Machine acquired two former printing press facilities in Lancaster earlier this year, with plans to turn them into data center campuses. The two separate locations total more than two million sq ft (185,806 sqm) across 144 acres in Lancaster County.
Though the companies never confirmed they are the same site, CoreWeave later announced plans to invest up to $6bn in developing a data center in Lancaster. Set to be co-developed by Chirisa Technology Parks and Machine Investment Group, the data center will have an initial 100MW of IT capacity, though it will have the potential to scale up to 300MW.
As part of the development, Blue Owl said the parties also intend to fund approximately $200 million for local power grid infrastructure improvements in partnership with PPL Electric Utilities.
"We are delighted to work with CTP and Blue Owl on an adaptive redevelopment that aligns with our strategy to repurpose and reimagine underutilized commercial properties in attractive locations," said Eric Rosenthal, Managing Partner at Machine. "Pennsylvania's strategic location and robust infrastructure make it an ideal setting to deploy capital into attractive new data center developments."
Newmark Group Inc. acted as an advisor for the Lancaster Joint Venture.
The two printing sites purchased by Machine were 216 Greenfield Road, which totaled 78 acres across two contiguous parcels and 1.1 million square feet (102,193 sqm) of industrial and manufacturing building spaces; and 1375 Harrisburg Pike, which sits on 66 acres and features an 825,000-square-foot (76,645 sqm) industrial and manufacturing building.
CoreWeave currently operates 33 AI data centers, 28 of which are located in the US. The company, as well as self-building facilities, leases space from the likes of Lincoln, Chirisa, Flexential, TierPoint, Digital Realty, Switch, Digital Crossroads, DataBank, Galaxy, and Applied Digital.
Machine Investment Group is a real estate investment platform focused on investing in opportunistic and distressed assets across the US, including a technology campus in New Jersey where CoreWeave is developing a data center.
Blue Owl has approximately $192 billion in assets under management. The company, which owns Stack through IPI, first announced a $5 billion joint venture with Chirisa and PowerHouse in August 2024 to develop turnkey AI/HPC data centers for CoreWeave and other customers.
Owned by Chirisa Investments, Chirisa Technology Parks was established in late 2022. The company has sites in operation and development across Virginia, Illinois, Washington, and New Jersey.
Blue Owl noted the Lancaster campus will reuse existing vacant industrial buildings. The site will use closed-loop cooling systems and magnetic levitation-based chiller systems. Emergency backup generators will be enclosed to reduce noise and fitted with Selective Catalytic Reduction systems to reduce NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions.
