Digital Realty Trust (DLR) has bought facilities in London and Amsterdam, continuing its active expansion in two of Europe's hottest data center markets. The London facility, known as Cressex 1, is an existing property that will be redveloped for data center use. The Amsterdam property, Naritaweg 52, is an existing data canter that is fully leased to a major IT provider.
"The addition of these two properties to our portfolio represents our continued expansion into select European markets, and is consistent with our strategy of acquiring high quality income producing assets along with value-add properties suitable for redevelopment," commented Michael Foust, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Trust.
Digital Realty paid 6.5 million British pounds ($13.1 million) for Cressex 1, a 51,000 square foot building in suburban London that will be redeveloped to include 20,000 square feet of raised floor Turn-Key Datacenter space and 15,000 square feet of supporting office/business continuity space. Construction will start in the first quarter of 2008, with completion expected by September 2008.
Naritaweg 52 in Amsterdam is a 63,000 square foot data center property built in 2001. The property includes 24,000 square feet of raised floor technical space and nearly 21,000 square feet of office space. The building is fully leased through September 2011 to a leading international information technology services company. The purchase price was 18.9 million euros, or about $27.3 million.
"We are continuing to see strong demand from customers seeking Turn-Key Datacentre space in the London market, where supply remains very limited," said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. "Redeveloping Cressex 1 gives us an opportunity to bring two 10,000 square foot PODs of Turn-Key Datacentre space to the supply-constrained London market much more quickly than if we were to develop a facility from the ground up - meeting the current demand while avoiding much of the risk associated with greenfield developments."
Digital's Turn-Key Datacenter program employs a pod architecture that divides each property into compartmentalized data centers of between 8,000 and 12,000 square feet. Crosby said the London space will be designed to green standards, including BREEAM in Europe and LEEDS in the US.
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns 69 properties totaling 12.1 million rentable square feet, including 1.8 million square feet of space held for redevelopment, in 26 markets throughout North America and Europe.
