What communities actually signed.

What the deals show computed from the files below, not written by hand

The scorecard 24 deals · 10 terms

Each row is one signed deal. Each column is one term a good deal should include. The stamp says whether the deal clears the bar I set for that term. Tap a row to see exactly what the deal says and where it says it.

Same country, same year, different deal the best and the worst on record

Both of these are signed, both were negotiated by people trying to do right by their town, and they are not close. Note which one is on the right: Lancaster is the agreement most often held up as the model, and it is written up as an example by the Sabin Center at Columbia. It is here because a bar applied evenly does not care who gets praised.

Ranked by the share of terms met, counting only the terms that apply. A deal that granted no tax break has nothing to claw back, so those clauses are excluded rather than counted against it. Deals with more than three unknown terms are left out of this comparison entirely, because being unreadable is not the same as being bad. That rule currently excludes Bessemer, where a $14.5 billion project was approved with no published economic terms at all.

Use this on your own deal the questions, already written

Mark Cuban's advice was to load these agreements into an AI and ask where the community is getting hurt. Here is that prompt, written out, with the ten terms built in. Paste it into any chat tool along with the agreement you are looking at.

You are reviewing a proposed data center agreement on behalf of the community that would host it.
You are not the developer's lawyer. Be concrete and quote the document.

Attached or pasted below is the agreement under negotiation.
Benchmark data on what other communities actually signed is at https://futurepickleballcourt.com/all.md

Answer these, in order:

1. For each of the terms below, quote the exact language in this agreement, or write NOT PRESENT.
   1. Community fund. A strong version: A fund that scales with the project, with a community seat on the body that spends it.
   2. Clawbacks. A strong version: Incentives come back if the facility stops operating, not only if a jobs number is missed.
   3. Decommissioning. A strong version: A bond, escrow, or letter of credit that pays for teardown and site restoration if the operator walks.
   4. Grid costs. A strong version: The operator pays for its own interconnection and carries a minimum bill that survives it leaving.
   5. Water. A strong version: A stated cap or closed-loop cooling, plus public reporting.
   6. Noise. A strong version: A numeric limit measured at the nearest residence or property line.
   7. Jobs. A strong version: Binding job commitments with a consequence, not projections.
   8. Local contracting. A strong version: Local subcontracting goals and haul-route road repair paid by the operator.
   9. Transparency. A strong version: No NDA, the agreement is public, and an independent audit on a schedule.
   10. Tax incentives. A strong version: A but-for test before any abatement, with the forgone revenue stated.

2. For every term that is present, quote any language that softens it: good faith, commercially
   reasonable, best efforts, sole discretion, subject to availability, as determined by the company,
   or similar. For each one, say plainly whether it is an obligation or a preference. A term that
   sounds protective and cannot be enforced is worse than no term, because it ends the conversation.

3. Which terms here are weaker than what other communities have already signed? Name the comparison.

4. Walk through what happens if this facility is built and then stops operating in year six.
   Who pays to tear it down. Who pays for the grid capacity built to serve it. What happens to the
   tax revenue the budget now depends on. Point to the clause that answers each, or say there is none.

5. Who can enforce each promise, and how. If only the local government can sue, say so. If residents
   are excluded as third party beneficiaries, say so.

6. List the three changes that would most improve this deal for the community, in priority order,
   with specific language to propose for each.

Do not soften your answer to be agreeable. If the deal is good, say that too.


OPTIONAL, IF YOU WANT THIS DEAL ADDED TO THE PUBLIC BENCHMARK

Print the block below, filled in. Leave a line blank if the document does not answer it.
Do not guess. A blank is useful; a guess is not.
Then send it to deals@futurepickleballcourt.com with a link to the document.

  PLACE:            (city or county, state)
  OPERATOR:         (who will run it, if named)
  DEVELOPER:        (who signed, if different)
  AGREEMENT TYPE:   (development agreement, proffer, tax abatement, land sale, other)
  DATE SIGNED:      (YYYY-MM-DD)
  DOCUMENT URL:     (a public link anyone can open)
  STATUS:           (signed, approved, proposed, withdrawn, terminated)
  COMMUNITY FUND:     (what the document says, and the section number)
  CLAWBACKS:          (what the document says, and the section number)
  DECOMMISSIONING:    (what the document says, and the section number)
  GRID COSTS:         (what the document says, and the section number)
  WATER:              (what the document says, and the section number)
  NOISE:              (what the document says, and the section number)
  JOBS:               (what the document says, and the section number)
  LOCAL CONTRACTING:  (what the document says, and the section number)
  TRANSPARENCY:       (what the document says, and the section number)
  TAX INCENTIVES:     (what the document says, and the section number)
  SOFTENING LANGUAGE: (any good faith, reasonable efforts, or sole discretion wording, quoted)

Accuracy matters more than completeness. Every line will be checked against the document
before it is published, and anything that cannot be found there will be removed.

Cuban's checklist, answered what he asked for, against what got signed

He published what towns should demand. This is what towns actually got. Each row counts the signed agreements in this benchmark that clear the bar for that ask. a ten-point checklist for towns getting their first data center, posted to X on September 8, 2026. His rule: every major promise should carry a measurable limit, independent oversight, financial backing, and a practical remedy if it is broken.

Not scored: Hire your own lawyers and technical advisors. This is a decision a town makes before it signs, not a term inside the agreement, so there is nothing in these documents to score. It may be the highest-value item on his list.

Not scored: Assess the entire planned build-out, not just phase one. Also a process question. It does show up indirectly: several agreements here write payment schedules for the first buildings only and go quiet about the rest.

Not scored: Demand guarantees from a financially credible parent company. No column tracks this yet because too few agreements address it to compare. Where it exists it is noted inside the deal, as in Richland Parish, where advocates argue the guarantee stopped reaching an entity with assets after the ownership changed.

Summarized from reporting on the thread rather than quoted. The asks below are paraphrases; follow the link for his own words.

The strongest terms anyone has actually signed

Quoted verbatim so it can be pasted into a redline. Four of the ten have no quote because no signed agreement in this benchmark contains language worth copying for that term. That absence is the finding, not an omission.

Add a deal a link to the document, and the place. That is the whole ask.

Send the document and the place. I will read it and score it. You do not need to know what a pull request is, and you do not need to learn the schema: fill in the two boxes and it writes the email for you. Nothing publishes automatically, because every term gets checked against the document first.

Wanted what would make this better

Deals worth adding next, and the exact document that would settle them. Claim one by opening an issue or just send the document. Requests from readers get added here.

1. New Mexico (statewide). Any executed data center agreement in New Mexico. A reader raised the state's lack of transparency in the thread that started this list and no New Mexico deal is in here yet. Needed: A development agreement, industrial revenue bond package, or utility special contract.
2. Memphis, Tennessee. xAI Colossus. A large campus with on-site gas turbines and a live permitting fight. Needed: The Memphis Light Gas and Water service agreement and any city or county incentive.
3. Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. The executed Microsoft development agreements. This record is built from the district's filings and press because the agreements themselves are not posted. Needed: The March 2023 and November 2023 development agreements from the village clerk.
4. Council Bluffs, Iowa. The city's own abatement agreements. The state contracts are public but the local terms are not. Needed: The city development agreements behind the reported $16.6 million break.
5. New Albany, Ohio. The community reinvestment area agreement text. Only the authorizing resolutions are published. Needed: The fourth amended and restated CRA agreement on file with the clerk of council.
6. Fort Meade, Florida. The executed city development agreement, as signed rather than as proposed in the April 2026 packet. Needed: The signed agreement and any amendment since April 14, 2026.
7. Bessemer, Alabama. Any economic terms at all. A $14.5 billion project was approved on zoning alone with nothing published. Needed: An incentive, abatement, or development agreement, if one exists.
8. Northern Virginia beyond Loudoun. Prince William and Fauquier approvals since the 2026 legislation. Needed: Proffer statements with the new sound-profile assessments.

Corrections already made are listed in CORRECTIONS.md. If a number here is wrong, that file is where the fix gets recorded.

The bar what each term has to include to count as met

1. Community fund. A fund that scales with the project, with a community seat on the body that spends it
2. Clawbacks. Incentives come back if the facility stops operating, not only if a jobs number is missed
3. Decommissioning. A bond, escrow, or letter of credit that pays for teardown and site restoration if the operator walks
4. Grid costs. The operator pays for its own interconnection and carries a minimum bill that survives it leaving
5. Water. A stated cap or closed-loop cooling, plus public reporting
6. Noise. A numeric limit measured at the nearest residence or property line
7. Jobs. Binding job commitments with a consequence, not projections
8. Local contracting. Local subcontracting goals and haul-route road repair paid by the operator
9. Transparency. No NDA, the agreement is public, and an independent audit on a schedule
10. Tax incentives. A but-for test before any abatement, with the forgone revenue stated

These bars are a position, not a law. They live in a plain text file in the repository, and anyone can propose a change by pull request.

Limits read this before you quote it

1. Small sample. A handful of deals is a start, not a survey. Do not read a pattern here as the national picture until the count is much higher.
2. One reader per document. "Read from the signed document" means a person read it and cited sections. It does not mean two people agreed. Corrections are welcome and expected.
3. Deals change. Agreements get amended, voided, and superseded. Each record carries the date it was last reviewed. Check the primary document before you act on a term.
4. The bar is an opinion. A deal that falls short here may still be a good deal for that town. The stamps say whether a term is present, not whether the whole deal was wise.
5. Unknown is not a failure. A question mark means nobody has found the answer yet. Many terms live in tariffs, side letters, or records requests, not the headline agreement.