Cooling costs ! Buildings whose whole structure doesn't take data center cooling requirements into account are at a significant cost disadvantage over modern ones built specifically with cooling optimization in mind.
The buildings do not have to be full to bring in more revenue than when sitting empty. Once they pay for operating expenses, everything else is profit. In many cases, I suspect the buildings are paid for, so the value of the real-estate is a sunk cost.
These aren't going to be on Google's scale. This is Ace Hardware not Home Depot. Optimization scales accordingly.
But you have to include the cost of building the entire building and real estate. That's a sunk cost for Sears, so they don't have to worry about that.
