Jul 12, 2025 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Oakland University (OU) in Rochester, Michigan, has released a "request for proposals" (RFP) last month, detailing the data center project planned for a five-acre site located at 253 Pioneer Drive, Rochester, on the existing parking lot P-35.
The Oakland Press reports that it is this substation that really provides the opportunity, quoting OU's vice president for finance and administration, Steven Mackey, as noting: "We have that asset built into our campus. The new data center would bring potential for smart campus technology, artificial intelligence research, experimental and digital learning, jobs for students, and the local economy.”
In the RFP, the University describes its project as a "colocation Edge data center in the sub-30MW range serving a mix of tenants." In addition, OU is interested in colocating some or all of its high-performance computing infrastructure in the data center, but does not expect to be the sole or primary tenant of the data center.OU aims to retain ownership of the land but to transfer all "design, build, finance, operating, and maintenance risk, including the securing of tenants, to a third-party Project Team."
