backKing & Spalding represented Hut 8 DC Corp. (Hut 8) on the structuring, drafting, and negotiation of a multibillion-dollar design-build agreement with Jacobs Project Management Co. (Jacobs) for the 245 MW high-density River Bend data center project, located in St. Francisville, Louisiana. This agreement was a key part in the project becoming the first single-sponsor data center project to secure investment-grade construction bond financing. (Hut 8 Closes $3.25 Billion of Investment-Grade Senior Secured Notes in Landmark Financing for River Bend Data Center Project).
Under this agreement, Jacobs is responsible for the design, engineering, procurement, construction, pre-commissioning, commissioning, start-up, and testing of the River Bend data center project. Jacobs contracted with Vertiv Corporation for the provision of the complete equipment solution using its OneCore solution.
This work was performed in connection with Hut 8’s recently announced 15-year lease with Fluidstack for the initial IT capacity of the River Bend campus, valued at $7.0B and supported by a financial backstop from Google, which covers the lease payments and related pass-through obligations. Key counterparties include Entergy, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and others, collectively supporting an institutional-grade execution model designed to de-risk project delivery with blue-chip counterparties.
Hut 8 is a publicly traded energy infrastructure company focused on developing, owning, and operating power, digital, and compute infrastructure. Its platform spans 710 MW of energy capacity under management and 8,375 MW of energy capacity under construction, development, exclusivity, and diligence across the United States and Canada.
The King & Spalding team advising Hut 8 includes Scott Greer, Gregg Jacobson and Pedro Claussen.
More information about the River Bend data center project can be found here and here.