Data Centers

NEW YORK CITY AND MIAMI — Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (NYSE: BIP) and its institutional partners have entered into an asset purchase agreement (APA) with Miami-based data center owner-operator Cyxtera. Brookfield will acquire “substantially all” of Cyxtera’s assets for $775 million. As part of the agreement, the New York City-based investment firm will purchase the real estate supporting seven Cyxtera data centers in the United States. The locations of the affected properties were not disclosed. According to the company’s website, Cyxtera operates facilities in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York/New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Tampa and Canada. Brookfield will purchase the real estate that supports the data centers from several landlords, including Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR) and Digital Core REIT. The court-supervised process stems from Cyxtera’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company cited financial challenges and lack of funding when it filed for bankruptcy this past summer, about two years after it went public. Cyxtera’s stock price peaked at $14.60 per share in May 2022 before dipping below $1.80 by December 2022. “We are pleased to reach this agreement with Brookfield, which represents a favorable path forward for our …

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DOUGLASVILLE, GA. — Data center developer and operator DC Blox has broken ground on a $1.2 billion data center campus in Douglasville, about 22 miles west of Atlanta. Situated on a 55-acre site, the two-story data center campus will feature 12 data halls totaling 750,000 square feet. Tenants will have access to 180 megawatts of power and will be connected to DC Blox’s nearly 500-mile dark fiber route, which is slated for completion before the end of the year. The east-west fiber path will connect the company’s major hubs in Atlanta to its holdings in Augusta and on to its newly opened DC Blox Cable Landing Station in Myrtle Beach. Initial customer move-ins at the Douglasville campus is expected for third-quarter 2025. DC Blox is using tax incentives coordinated by Elevate Douglas Economic Partnership to help fund the development. The design-build team includes Evans General Contractors, DLB Associates, Bennett & Pless and Corgan, Thomas & Hutton.

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MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — DC Blox, a data center provider based in Atlanta, has opened its Cable Landing Station in Myrtle Beach. The 125,000-square-foot facility is equipped with 19 megawatts (mW) of power and can host up to five subsea cables and colocation space for network and cable operators, communications providers, local enterprises and partners. DC Blox is also building a dark fiber route from the new facility to its communications hub in Atlanta. Google has announced two subsea cables that will land at the Myrtle Beach station, including the Firmina cable connecting Myrtle Beach to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the Nuvem cable to connect to Portugal and Bermuda. Edge Holdings (a subsidiary of Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram) has announced that it plans to land its Anjana cable connecting to Spain.

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SEATTLE — Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) that offers on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments, plans to make a big investment in Central Ohio. The company, along with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, announced the firm will invest approximately $7.8 billion to expand its data center operations in the region by the end of 2029. AWS is currently undertaking a site selection process across numerous localities in Central Ohio for the new data center campuses, the total number of facilities of which was not disclosed. Final site selections will be decided and announced at a later date. The move is expected to create 230 new jobs and an estimated 1,000 support jobs, according to J.P. Nauseef, president and CEO of JobsOhio, an economic development corporation based in Columbus. The AWS data center project represents the second-largest single private sector company investment in Ohio’s history, according to the governor’s office. The new data centers will contain computer servers, data storage drives, networking equipment and other forms of technology infrastructure used to power cloud computing. “Amazon is already one of the largest private-sector employers in Ohio, and the company’s continued growth …

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Prime-Arizona

AVONDALE, ARIZ. — Prime, a global developer and operator of data centers, has announced plans for a $2 billion data center campus in Avondale, roughly 20 miles outside Phoenix.  The development will include five data center buildings spanning 1.3 million square feet, generating a total of 210 megawatts of critical power upon completion. The speculative project will target occupancy by hyperscale service providers, large internet brands and global technology companies.  The data centers will span 260,400 square feet across three stories, and have access to a wholesale dark fiber connectivity network. Each building will include 12 data halls and 120,000 square feet of white space — which is the space where IT equipment is placed within a data center — alongside separate infrastructure galleries.  The campus will offer access to 100 percent renewable energy and a closed-loop cooling system, which is expected to save millions of gallons of water across the facilities. The first data center building is expected for completion in the third quarter of 2025. “Phoenix presents an incredible growth opportunity for Prime as a top-five, North American data center market with increasing demand from cloud and enterprise data center buyers,” says Chris Sumter, executive vice president of …

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ASHBURN, VA. — GI Partners Real Estate has purchased a data center located at 43915 Devin Shafron Drive in Ashburn, a city in North Virginia known as “Data Center Alley.” According to LoopNet Inc., the facility spans 138,600 square feet. Starwood Capital Group and minority owner and property manager Digital Realty sold the facility to GI Partners for an undisclosed price. CBRE’s Data Center Capital Markets team represented the sellers in the transaction. Built in 2010, the property was fully leased at the time of sale to two undisclosed “creditworthy tenants.” The 98-acre property offers 9 megawatts (MW) of critical power and can be expanded in the future.

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ASHBURN, VA. — H5 Data Centers has broken ground on a three-story, 255,000-square-foot data center in Ashburn, a city in Northern Virginia. The Denver-based developer has begun preleasing the property, which is set for delivery in the third quarter of 2024. The data center located on Beaumeade Circle will qualify for Virginia data center sales and use tax exemption, according to H5. Ashburn is known as the data center capital of the world and houses facilities leased to Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta, among others.

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BRYAN, TEXAS — Aphorio Carter, a division of Tampa-based investment firm Carter Funds, has acquired a data center and office complex located in the Central Texas city of Bryan for $55 million. The complex consists of two data center buildings and one office building totaling 69,788 square feet. At the time of sale, the facility was fully leased to colocation services provider Fibertown, which recently entered into a 20-year net lease at the property. The seller was not disclosed.

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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Locally based firm Nauset Construction is underway on the renovation of a 90,000-square-foot data center that is located across the Charles River from Boston in Cambridge. The project represents the third phase of capital improvements at the property at 300 Bent St. Upgrades will include the demolition and excavation of the existing lobby, the revamping of mechanical and utility systems and the addition of another 8,000 square feet of tenant space. Khalsa Design is the project architect. Construction is anticipated to be complete this fall. CEM Realty Trust owns the property.

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FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Hilco Real Estate has brokered the bankruptcy sale of a 48,980-square-foot data center located along U.S. Highway 287 in Fort Worth. Built in 2018 as an industrial flex property and recently repositioned to support data center usage, the facility features 18- to 26-foot clear heights, 22 drive-in doors and office space. The site includes 6.5 acres for future expansion. The facility was leased to an undisclosed trucking company at the time of sale. The buyer and seller were not disclosed.

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