McHugh Plans Major Chicago Data Center

A design concept for a six-story, 300,000 square foot data center in Chicago proposed by McHugh Construction.

McHugh Construction Co. has announced plans to build a major data center in downtown Chicago, just blocks from the city’s major Internet connectivity hub. The Chicago-based company has asked city officials to approve a six-story, 300,000 square foot data center project at 2222 South Indiana Avenue, adjacent to the McCormick Place convention center and 350 East Cermak Road, the enormous carrier hotel operated by Digital Realty Trust.

The project revives a plan for a data center at the site, which was first proposed in 2001 but shelved after the dot-com bust left an oversupply of data center space. In 2008 McHugh tried to sell the site for possible use as a hotel or entertainment complex to support the convention center. But the credit crunch made it difficult to finance those types of projects, and with demand for data center space in downtown Chicago remaining strong, McHugh revisited the data center concept.

Supply Running Low
A likely factor in the decision is the dwindling amount of space remaining at 350 East Cermak, which spans 1.1 million square feet but is 95.9 percent occupied as of Sept. 30, according to Digital Realty. The only other building in downtown Chicago with space for large footprints available is the CoreSite building at 427 South LaSalle Street.

The Emerging Market for Wireless Backhaul

Last Thursday Level 3 launched a wireless tower access service offering wireless tower operators direct connectivity to the Level 3 backbone, which would provide cost-effective options for wireless backhaul in metropolitan and rural locations. This is a growth market, according to analysts like Jennifer Pigg from the Yankee Group, who says mobile operators are scrambling to meet capacity demand and predicts that mobile data traffic will grow by an order of magnitude in the coming years. 

The towers are located in rural areas and offer voice, data and Internet services as an alternative to incumbent providers. Level 3 also offers shared infrastructure to allow wireless carriers to expand without building their own towers. 

Wireless data networks have been an increasingly hot market in recent months, according to Visiant Strategies, which examined the market in a report titled US Mobile Backhaul 2010: Continued Expansion 2009 to 2015. ”All wireless carriers in the United States are continuing to ramp up their networks with technologies that allow much greater capacity and the use of much more capacity per user, mainly a result of meaningful wireless data applications and devices, and this means much more backhaul capacity will be needed,” wrote Andy Fuertes of Visiant Strategies.

Demand Remains Strong in Key Markets

Data center demand is outpacing supply across the United States and pricing remains strong in key markets, according to the latest analysis by commercial real estate specialist Grubb & Ellis.

In a presentation Tuesday at  DataCenterDynamics Chicago, Jim Kerrigan of Grubb & Ellis said more than 20 megawatts of data center critical load was leased in the third quarter, the strongest activity thus far in 2009. Kerrigan, the director of the data center practice at Grubb & Ellis, said demand is outpacing supply by “three-fold.”

Chicago is Hottest Colo Market
Kerrigan said downtown Chicago is the hottest colocation market in the country, while northern Virginia is seeing the strongest activity in leasing of wholesale data center space.

CoreSite Opens New Space in Chicago

The interior of the new CoreSite data center expansion in Chicago.

CoreSite (formerly CRG West) has completed 20,000 square feet of new space at the company’s Chicago data center at 427 South LaSalle Street, the company said today. The new space, located in the heart of the financial district, will accommodate demand for data center space in downtown Chicago. It expands the existing footprint at the LaSalle Street site, where CoreSite has about 30 existing data center and colocation customers.

The new space is supported by 2N emergency generator back-up power as well as an N+1 cooling and UPS configuration. It features a raised-floor design with a return-air plenum, allowing for hot aisle containment to maximize energy efficiency.

Continuum to Open Chicago Data Center

Colocation provider Continuum Data Centers, LLC will open a new data center in Lombard, Illinois this month. Continuum said today that it has chosen AboveNet, Inc. (ABVT) to provide the backbone for its high-bandwidth transport from its 20,000 square foot data center in Lombard to AboveNet’s Oak Brook, Illinois point of presence (POP).

The new facility is the latest opening in an increasingly active Chicago data center market. “This data center has been specifically designed to give organizations the service, support and pricing that has been missing in the Chicago suburban colocation market,” said Tom Chaffin, Managing Partner of Continuum. “We feel AboveNet is a key ingredient to the success of our data center. AboveNet provides exceptional services and is the backbone of our transport network.”

Inside Allstate’s New Data Center

Allstate Insurance Co. recently completed a 50,000 square foot data center in Rochelle, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago. The company has put together a video providing a tour of the facility, highlighting some of the energy-efficiency measures and offering a brief look at the equipment area. This video runs about 2 minutes.

Check out our Green Data Center Channel for more on this topic. For additional video, visit our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

SingleHop Expands with ServerCentral

The DuPont Fabros CH1 facility, where SingleHop has leased space from ServerCentral.

Managed hosting provider SingleHop has expanded its footprint within ServerCentral’s 10,000 square feet of colocation space in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. SingleHop says it entered into a $2.5 million agreement with ServerCentral, which is a tenant in the DuPont Fabros Technology CH1 data center.

The new space can support power densities of 12 kilowatts per cabinet (210 watts per square foot). Its the second data center for SingleHop, which also operates a facility in downtown Chicago housing 2,000 servers. SingleHop was founded in 2006 by Chicago entrepreneurs Dan Ushman and Zak Boca and says it has annual revenue of $4.5 million.

“The additional space enables geographic redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities,” said Brandon Ewing, SingleHop’s Senior Network Engineer. “Customers will benefit as they have more room for growth and more options for redundancy. The new data center gives SingleHop a platform from which to continue heavily investing in a wide and robust network both at our original data center and the new facility.”

Ascent Plans Major Chicago Data Center

Developer Ascent Corporation is building a second huge data center in Northlake, Il., a western suburb of Chicago, the company said today. The new 250,000 square foot facility is being built adjacent to Ascent’s first Northlake property, an enormous Microsoft Corp. data center. Ascent said the new project, known as CH2, will be completed by the end of 2009.

The CH2 project represents a huge vote of confidence in the strength of the Chicago data center market, which has seen strong leasing downtown but uneven uptake in several new projects in the Western suburbs. That includes a large facility built in Elk Grove Village by another wholesale data center provider, DuPont Fabros Technology, which opened in mid-2008 and is presently 17 percent leased. Equinix also built a large colocation center in Elk Grove Village last year.

But Ascent hit a home run with its first Northlake property, which was announced in 2007 as a multi-tenant speculative project but by the end of the year was fully leased to Microsoft. The developer believes its delivery model, known as Dynamic Data Center Suites, will prove to be a winning approach, combining colocation space with custom data suites featuring dedicated tenant infrastructure.

“The new Northlake data center, CH2, is designed to be a completely flexible environment, enabling customers to choose the most appropriate option for their needs,” said Phil Horstmann, the CEO of Ascent Corporation. “Dynamic Data Center Suites represent the future of the data center – this is the first time customers will have the option to fully customize their infrastructures. Planning the new data center geographically near the 707,000 square foot facility we developed last year in Northlake also enables customers to take advantage of the same power and connectivity capabilities.”

ServerCentral Expands in Chicago Market

The DuPont Fabros CH1 data center, where ServerCentral has leased space.

ServerCentral is expanding its operations with a new data center in the Chicago market, leasing space in DuPont Fabros Technology’s new CH1 data center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The colocation provider has opened a 10,000 square feet facility at CH1, which includes 6,200 square feet of space on a 42-inch raised floor that can support up to 210 watts per square foot of power density.

“I’m excited to find a Chicago-area facility that will allow us to truly meet customer needs both present and future,” said Jordan Lowe, ServerCentral President and CEO. “While many options exist in the market today, the technical leadership exhibited by DuPont Fabros in this facility really impressed me. Significant efforts were made to choose environmentally conscious technologies in the design of the building, including UPS systems free of chemical batteries, advanced mechanical system automation and higher voltage throughout the building’s power distribution.”