Gold/Platinum LEED Twinbill for Sabey

A view of bey.comthe Intergate.Columbia data center complex built by Sabey Corp. in Wenatchee, Washington.

Sabey Corp. has obtained a Gold LEED certification for the shell and core for Building B of its Intergate.Columbia  complex in Wenatchee, Wash., while tenant VMware has received a Platinum LEED certification for the critical infrastructure for its data center in building B.

Platinum is the highest rating possible under the LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings overseen by the US Green Building Council, while Gold is the second-highest rating. The VMware data center is one of just seven LEED Platinum data centers.

Building B at Intergate.Columbia is a 188,000 square foot facility supported by 22 megawatts of utility power. Sabey Construction was the general contractor for both VMware’s tenant improvements and for the core and shell.

Sabey Unveils Funding, Expansion Plans

Rows of server racks inside the Sabey Corp. Intergate.Columbia data center complex in Wenatchee, Wash.

Sabey Corporation has partnered with National Real Estate Advisors to form a new venture that will expand Sabey’s data center operations beyond its core market in the Pacific northwest, the companies said Thursday.

The new company, Sabey DataCenter Properties, will include Sabey’s existing data center developments. NREA will have a minority equity interest and will invest $100 million, which will be used to support the current portfolio and finance growth in new markets.

Sabey is not identifying any of the markets where it may eventually operate data centers. But the company has forged a strong track record in building energy-efficient facilities, and its expansion comes at a time of growing interest in data centers built to the highest efficiency standards.

NREA is a real estate investment management and advisory firm owned by National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF), a multi-billion dollar pension plan that provides retirement benefits to employees in the electrical industry.

Sabey Wenatchee Project Honored by NAIOP

A view of the Intergate.Columbia data center complex built by Sabey Corp. in Wenatchee, Washington.

Sabey Corp.’s Intergate.Columbia data center complex near East Wenatchee, Washington has received the Technology Development of the Year award from NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association. Sabey, a Seattle-based developer was presented the award at the Washington Chapter of NAIOP’s event on Nov. 6.

Intergate.Columbia is a 438,000 square foot data center campus, which includes large data centers for T-Mobile and VMware. Sabey Construction Inc. broke ground at the 30-acre site near the Columbia River in April 2008 and simultaneously constructed the shell and core for two buildings. Despite the dual schedules, the work was completed by the end of the year on time and within budget.

Sabey Confirms Huge Quincy Data Center

It’s official: Sabey Corporation will build a 525,000-square-foot data center campus in Quincy, Wash., the company said today. Sabey will break ground this summer on Intergate.Quincy, which will feature three data center facilities on 40 acres.

Sabey Corp. decided to build the campus in Quincy after its leasing success at its Intergate.Columbia in nearby East Wenatchee, where T-Mobile and VMware signed on as tenants within a year of groundbreaking. Sabey, a Seattle-based developer, began evaluating prospects for a data center in Quincy in 2007, and has listed the project on its web site for several months.

The new development continues the data center building boom in central Washington, where Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask.com and Intuit, have opened large data centers, drawn by the area’s low power rates and clean hydro-electric power from nearby dams on the Columbia River. Sabey notes that while the other projects are company-built and operated, Intergate.Sabey is “wholesale” data center space designed for companies who prefer to lease rather than own.

T-Mobile Moves In, Sabey Eyes Quincy

T-Mobile officially opened its new $250 million data center in East Wenatchee, Washington last week, as local officials touted the impact of local data centers on the township’s tax base. The facility is the first of two major data centers being built at Sabey Corp.’s Intergate.Columbia development, where VMware has also leased more than 100,000 square feet of data center space.

The new data centers are already boosting tax revenues. At last week’s ceremony to mark the opening og the T-Mobile project, Douglas County Commissioner Ike Stanton said the county’s sales tax revenue jumped 280 percent in a single year, increasing from $220,000 in February 2008 to $838,000 in February 2009. “We refer to this in Douglas County as our own, federal stimulus package, because it’s been very good for Douglas County,” Stanton said, according to the Wenatchee World.

Huge T-Mobile Lease at New Sabey Project

T-Mobile will lease 200,000 square feet of space at Intergate.Columbia, the Sabey Corp. data center project in East Wenatchee, Washington, according to local media. T-Mobile is the first tenant announced for the Sabey facility, which is projected to have a project cost of more than $100 million.

The primary T-Mobile’ data center in Bothell, Washington was flooded last month when torrential rains hit the Seattle area. The outage knocked the T-mobile website offline and disrupted new customer activations nationwide. Bothell is more vulnerable to flooding than other data center hubs in the Seattle area. East Wenatchee is in an area of central Washington that has seen a boom in data centers since 2006, when Microsoft announced a major new facility in Quincy to support its new online services.

Sabey Eyes Expansion in Quincy, Wash.

Data center developer Sabey Corp. is looking to expand its presence in central Washington, and has discussed purchasing land from the Port of Quincy, a large industrial park that is also home to Microsoft’s huge new data center. Sabey is already building a 100,000 square foot data center in Wenatchee.

The Port of Quincy is holding a meeting tonight to get public comment on whether it should sell land to Sabey. “They’ve made an inquiry and we’re trying to schedule a joint meeting between the commissioners and the Sabey group,” Port Commissioner Brian Kuest told the Columbia Basin Herald. “We’re not far enough along in the inquiry process to know exactly what Sabey’s needs are.”

Sabey says it is evaluating properties in the area and interested in discussing land values with property owners. It hasn’t made any commitments as yet, but Sabey has made no secret of its interest in the area. “We see North Central Washington as a very logical extension of our data center business,” Senior Vice President of Real Estate John Sabey said last August, when Sabey announced its Intergate.Columbia project. “We’re a long-time Northwest family and a long-time Northwest company, and we’re looking to be a part of East Wenatchee and the greater Wenatchee area for a long time as well.”

Additional development by Sabey would continue the influx of huge data centers in central Washington, including projects by Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask.com and Intuit in addition to Sabey.

Huge Power Draws for Google, Yahoo, Sabey

The Sabey Corp. has contracted with the Douglas County Public Utility District for 30 megawatts of electricity for its new Intergate.Columbia LLC data center in East Wenatchee, Wash., according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. If the company were to use all of its contracted power, that would amount to about one-third of the PUD’s anticipated local demand of about 90 megawatts, said Bill Dobbins, general manager of Douglas County PUD. “This is a big deal,” said Dobbins.

There are even bigger deals right in the neighborhood, as Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are building facilities in the area that have arranged for even larger amounts of power. Microsoft’s project in Quincy, Wash. has contracted for a maximum of 48 megawatts of power from the Grant County PUD. Yahoo is building a data center in Wenatchee and has contracted for 42 megawatts of power, according to the Seattle paper.

Sabey Plans $100M Facility in Wenatchee, Wa.

Developer Sabey Corp. said today that it will build a 100,000 square feet data center in East Wenatchee, Wash., continuing an inflow of major data centers into central Washington State. Yahoo and Microsoft are also building large data center facilities inn the Wenatchee/Quincy area.

The data center, tentatively named Intergate.Columbia, is expected to cost up to $100 million to construct and to be completed and operational by late 2007 or early 2008. The new facility will have the flexibility to house either a single large user or multiple tenants, according to the company’s Senior Vice President of Real Estate John Sabey.

Sabey plans to locate Intergate.Columbia on 30 acres near Pangborn Field. The company has a purchase option on the land, which has already been zoned for a business park, with the Battermann family. Terms of the planned purchase were not disclosed. The center will purchase its power from Douglas County Public Utility District (PUD), which recently approved a service contract for up to 30 megawatts of electricity. “Douglas County Public Utility District was very helpful throughout this process and will be instrumental in the success of this project,” Sabey said.

Sabey is a large developer based in Seattle with substantial expeirence in the data center business. It operates the Sabey Data Center, which includes a finished 120,000 square foot data center and 350,000 of expansion space. Sabey initially built the facility for Exodus, but bought it through the bankruptcy court after Exodus filed Chapter 11.