FOREST GROVE, ORE. — Crane Data Centers Inc. and Principal Asset Management plan to develop a data center campus in Forest Grove, a suburb of Portland. The campus will be situated near the Hillsboro data center ecosystem, which houses data centers for users including Meta, Twitter and Microsoft, among others. The estimated development cost for the project was not disclosed.
“We’re honored to partner with Principal Real Estate Investors to develop a new data center campus in the Portland market,” says Matt Pfile, CEO of Crane.
“This strategic partnership with Crane and data center investment in the Portland area is an exciting project for all parties involved and makes for an excellent addition to our current portfolio of data centers,” says Ben Wobschall, managing director of real estate at Principal Asset Management.
The first phase of the project includes a data center spanning approximately 300,000 square feet on a 35-acre site. The facility will have an initial capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) with plans to expand to over 100 MW, according to the developers. The two-story property will have 30-foot clear heights with flooring that can support 400 pounds per square foot, according to Crane. The construction timeline for Phase I was not disclosed.
The campus will grant users access to multiple fiber paths, recycled water for cooling and an onsite substation connected to the transmission grid, which will provide users access to low-cost renewable energy.
“We’re excited to collaborate with the Principal real estate team and develop a data center campus that demonstrates our strong commitment to sustainability,” says Pfile.
BMO Capital Markets Corp. and Compo Capital Advisors acted as strategic and financial advisors to Crane for the Forest Grove project.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Crane is a data center developer and operator with projects in the pre-development phase in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Chicago, as well as Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. The company is seeking to grow its presence in Northern Virginia, Dallas, Atlanta and Australia.
Principal Asset Management is the global investment solutions business for Des Moines, Iowa-based Principal Financial Group (Nasdaq: PFG). The firm has $484.6 billion in assets under management, including $98.5 billion of commercial real estate assets.
— John Nelson