In commercial real estate, zoning has long been treated as the ultimate green light.
If a property is zoned correctly, most people assume the hard part is over. Design can be refined, financing can be structured, and timelines can be negotiated. Zoning, after all, determines what you’re allowed to build.
But increasingly, there’s a quieter question determining whether a project moves forward at all:
Can the grid support it?
In many markets today, zoning approval no longer guarantees feasibility. Power availability has become the real gatekeeper — and when the grid says no (or not yet), zoning alone doesn’t save the deal.
Zoning defines permitted use.
Power determines whether that use can actually function.
A site may be perfectly zoned for industrial, mixed-use, or high-density development, but without adequate electrical capacity, it remains theoretical. Utilities don’t operate on zoning maps — they operate on infrastructure limits, load forecasts, and upgrade timelines.
This disconnect is where many projects quietly stall.
“Zoning tells you what’s allowed. Power tells you what’s possible.”
Power constraints rarely announce themselves early. They tend to surface after time, money, and momentum have already been invested.
Common scenarios include:
None of these issues invalidate zoning approval — but they can invalidate the project.
In these cases, zoning didn’t fail. Assumptions did.
In development, a gating factor is the condition that must be satisfied before anything else can proceed. If it isn’t resolved, every other approval becomes irrelevant.
Power has increasingly become that gate because:
When power is constrained, zoning becomes secondary.
Across many markets, power feasibility is being evaluated earlier than zoning certainty — not because zoning matters less, but because power is harder to fix late.
Large users and sophisticated developers are now asking:
Sites that can’t answer these questions early are increasingly filtered out before formal planning ever begins.
The risk today isn’t just buying the wrong zoning — it’s assuming zoning equals readiness.
Projects that overlook power feasibility may face:
Conversely, sites with verified power availability gain a quiet advantage. They move faster, underwrite more cleanly, and attract users who can’t afford uncertainty.
“Feasibility now depends on infrastructure as much as entitlement.”
Zoning still matters. But it no longer answers the first question.
A more modern evaluation sequence looks like this:
This shift doesn’t make projects harder — it makes early diligence more important.
Zoning approval may open the door, but power determines whether you can walk through it.
As commercial real estate continues to evolve, understanding infrastructure constraints isn’t about being technical — it’s about being realistic. Projects that align zoning with grid capacity move forward. Projects that don’t often stall quietly, long after approvals are granted.
The deals that work tomorrow are being shaped by questions that get asked today.
Series: Power Perspective
Written from a commercial real estate advisory perspective, focused on feasibility, risk awareness, and long-term decision making.
Selected Industry References
Business Facilities — Energy Availability and Grid Readiness in Site Selection
LightBox — Power Constraints and Industrial Site Feasibility
BLMI — Infrastructure Scarcity and Development Strategy
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