1102 Grand Expands Colocation Space

Kansas City carrier hotel 1102 Grand has expanded its colocation room and private cage colocation space, the company said today. The building has added 2,000 square feet of raised floor colocation space, and is adding another 4,000 square feet of caged colo space area scheduled to be completed in June.

Todd Applegate, Business Development Manager at 1102 Grand, said the expansion was driven by demand from existing tenants. “We have listened to service providers and enterprise customers who are significantly driving the demand for colocation services in our facility,” said Applegate. “By being connected to our carrier neutral Meet Me Room, customers in these new colocation areas will benefit from being a cross-connect away from a wide array of carrier networks. Since we serve such a diverse group of customers from as far away as Europe, it is exciting to see what can happen when companies utilize our Meet Me Room to do business together.”

PaySpot Chooses 1102 Grand in KC

PaySpot, a leading electronic payments processor, has leased space at the 1102 Grand carrier hotel in Kansas City to expand its disaster recovery facilities, the company said this week. 1102 Grand, which is Kansas City’s largest carrier-neutral facility, will also provide backup facilities for RIA Envia, Inc. Both PaySpot and RIA Envia are subsidiaries of Euronet Worldwide (Nasdaq: EEFT), a leader in providing secure electronic transaction and payment processing.

“We are delighted to host PaySpot in our facility,” said Todd Applegate, Business Development Manger at 1102 GRAND. “Our building along with our core infrastructure, positioned directly on Kansas City’s major metropolitan fiber ring, provides global network operators and enterprise companies the ability to securely host their networking equipment and mission critical applications.”

QualityTech Buys Customers in Kansas City

Managed hosting provider Quality Technology Services has acquired the customers of First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) in the Kansas City market. FNTS had been managing QualityTech’s data centers in the Kansas City market, including facilities in Lenexa and Overland Park totaling about 75,000 square feet of space.

“These new customers will now benefit from QualityTech’s fully-managed services and technology solutions,” said Mark Waddington, President of QualityTech. “Our robust connectivity, power and cooling density are just a few of the many reasons we’re a leader in the industry. Our highly-experienced team has the ability to tailor collocation services for businesses in need of scalable space and bandwidth, to give our clients peace of mind.”

The acquisition increases QualityTech’s presence in the Midwest, and brings the company’s contracted annual revenue above the $100 million mark. QualityTech currently manages and operates more than 2 million square feet of data centers, which the company says has a market value in excess of $500 million.

Carrier Hotel Alliance Adds 1102 Grand

The Carrier Hotel Alliance (CHA) has expanded its membership to include 1102 GRAND, Kansas City’s largest carrier-neutral interconnection facility, which will participate in CHA’s joint marketing effort at the 2007 Global Telecommunications Meeting (GTM) May 21-24 in Washington, DC.

The CHA is a cooperative effort of North America’s largest operators of carrier hotels (multi-tenant telecom buildings), including CRG West (One Wilshire and San Jose’s Marketplace Tower), the Westin Building of Seattle and the telx Group network of meet-me rooms in a dozen major Internet gateways across the US, including 60 Hudson and 111 Eighth Avenue in New York.

The CHA offers prospective customers the opportunity to “build their entire North American network in one room” at major telecom industry conferences. “It’s a win-win situation for GTM attendees,” commented Michael Boyle, Director of Business Development for the Westin Building. “The combination of international network operators, equipment manufacturers, and facility owners in the CHA allows attendees to buy and build the necessary infrastructure for the next phase of telecommunications growth.”

Cerner Is Latest Facility for Kansas City

Cerner Corporation, which makes software and technology for the health care industry, is developing a 135,000 square foot data center near the company’s headquarters in Kansas City. Cerner began construction of the complex last spring, with completion expected this summer. It expects to spend $60 million on construction and $20 million on equipment during the first year of the project.

Cerner is the latest company to build in Kansas City, a market that illustrates the “clustering effect” for data centers discussed in our article last week on the Boyd Company’s data center site location research. Kansas City is home to data center facilities from MasterCard, Liberty Lexis/Nexis, Ameritrade, Quality Technologies, IDC Global, 1&1 Internet and many others. It has benefited from a strong availability of fiber and power, as well as a supportive local economic development community that was among the earliest second-tier cities to market its suitability for data centers.

According to Kansas City press reports, Cerner is seeking up to $80 million in revenue bonds for the financing of a new data center and office building. The Kansas City Council’s Finance and Audit Committee have recommended the approval of the bonds for the project at the corner of 33rd Terrace and Chouteau Trafficway in Kansas City, North.