Microsoft Eyes Texas for $600M Data Center

Microsoft is exploring sites in Texas for a 470,000 square foot server farm that could cost as much as $600 million to build, according to local media reports. San Antonio and Austin are in the running for the massive facility, according to the San Antonio Express Times, which cited local real estate and economic development sources.

“People close to San Antonio’s talks with Microsoft said its site-selection staff likes the area’s inexpensive electrical power, work force and lack of exposure to natural disasters,” the paper reported. Real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle is said to be working on Microsoft’s behalf and looking in the Westover Hills area of San Antonio.

Digital Realty To Build Out Space in 10 Cities

Technology landlord Digital Realty Trust (DLR) said today that it will launch a large-scale project to redevelop data center space it owns in 10 major U.S. markets. The investment represents a huge vote of confidence in the data center market amid growing demand for premium space. It also allows Digital Realty to capitalize on data center space shortages and rising prices in major Internet cities.

Demand for data center space is growing along with the Internet economy. As television and movie content moves to a digital delivery model, an enormous volume of digital files will need to be stored in data centers to provide “always on” high-speed access. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are planning huge infrastructure expansions to deliver online services and applications.

Doigital Realty’s redevelopment projects will create more than 330,000 square feet of advanced data center space, with approximately 40 megawatts (MW) of available UPS load. Sites selected for development include Digital Realty Trust facilities in Northern New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“Demand for high-quality datacenter space has been strong in each of these ten cities, which makes the timing of these redevelopment projects ideal,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Sales and Technical Services at Digital Realty Trust. “Each of these datacenter spaces will offer the world-class technical capabilities that Digital Realty Trust facilities are known for, including outstanding electrical power availability - an increasingly rare commodity in the technology real estate market.”

HP’s Data Center Mega-Consolidation

Hewlett-Packard has unveiled one of the most ambitious data center consolidation projects yet, which will consolidate 85 data centers worldwide into six larger centers located in three U.S. cities.

HP’s announcement is great news for Atlanta, Houston and Austin, which will each be home to two new huge data centers. The facilities are being designed as “lights out” data centers, capable of being managed remotely by HP’s adaptive infrastructure solutions. The company is also implementing smart cooling technologies that optimize airflow for cooling of the data centers, leading to utility cost savings of up to 25 percent.

HP will invest $600 million in two 200,000-square-foot data centers in metro Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Business Journal. A new data center in Suwanee, Ga., will create 140 new jobs over the next five years. A second data center will be built in Alpharetta, Ga., at the site of an HP campus. That data center also will employ 140.

The Austin data centers will measure about 400,000 square feet and will include 50,000 square feet of raised floor space. One center will be located at Ed Bluestein Blvd. and the other will be located at its existing campus in Wells Branch, according to the Austin Business Journal.

‘Data Center Park’ Planned in Austin

Zydeco Development is planning a 350-acre “data center park” in Austin, Texas, and describes its ambitious plans in an article in Network World, which notes that the Met Center development is “part of a wave of new data center construction.” Zydeco has equipped the site to support advanced data centers, including two electrical substations. Potential tenants have the option of either buying land and building their own facility or leasing a custom-built data center from Zydeco.

Zydeco president Howard Yancey  acknowledges that the company is betting big on the data center sector. But he believes it’s an informed wager. “It’s speculative in the sense that we’re spending a bunch money for the infrastructure that we wouldn’t normally spend for a typical business park,” said Yancey. “We’re spending that because we feel very strongly that demand is there. Could we be wrong? Yup. But we’re going to make the investment anyway.”

Austin Offers Incentives for Hewlett-Packard

The city of Austin is preparing to offer $3.2 million in tax incentives to computer giant Hewlett-Packard in a bid to seal the deal on a new $300 million data center, according to local news reports. The new facility would create at least 140 jobs in the Austin area, pating an average of about $60,000 apiece. Hewlett Packard is retrofitting a building at the Freescale Semiconductor campus on Ed Bluestein Boulevard in Southeast Austin and is also said to be considering a second site in Wells Branch. Austin has become a magnet for enterprise data centers in recent years, with Oracle (2002) and Home Depot also locating facilities in the Texas capital.

H-P Purchases Austin Complex for Data Center

Hewlett-Packard has bought three buildings in Austin for use as a 200,000 square foot data center complex, according to media reports, which note that Austin is the headquarters for Dell, one of H-P’s primary rivals in the personal computing market. The deal includes three buildings in the Freescale Semiconductor campus on Ed Bluestein Boulevard, which had been listed by a local real estate brokerage an offering price of $16.3 million. Austin has become a magnet for enterprise data centers in recent years, with Oracle (2002) and Home Depot.

Digital Realty Acquires Five More Properties

Digital Realty Trust has bought five more technology properties, the company announced today, spending a total of $57.3 million to acquire 575,000 square feet of space in Virginia, New Jersey and Texas. The latest acquisitions include:

251 Exchange Place in Herndon, Virginia, a 71,000 square foot property near Dulles Airport. The building is fully leased on a long-term basis to a leading network provider that uses it as an Internet gateway facility, and was purchased for $12.9 million.

Two buildings at the Met Center Business Park in Austin, Texas near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The first building is approximately 45,000 square feet and is 100% leased to a single tenant that uses it primarily as a data center and NOC. The second building is 75,000 square feet and currently unoccupied. Digital realty said it will position the site for redevelopment for an enterpise client, saying it “expects robust demand for the building due to its ideal location for corporate disaster recovery as well as its excellent power and fiber infrastructure.” The purchase price for the two buildings was $13.5 million.