AT&T Wireless, the country’s second-largest cell phone service provider, has continuously occupied the property since it was built in 1995 and over the past three years invested more then $50 million of its own capital to upgrade the facility. with plans for additional investment.

The National Network Operations Center is located in Redmond, with easy access to Interstate 405 and State Route 520, and situated adjacent to a primary telecommunication fiber corridor.

“The acquisition of the AT&T Wireless National Network Operations Center represents the REIT’s first major acquisition in the Pacific Northwest,” said Michael Escalante, Griffin Capital’s Chief Investment Officer. “The Puget Sound region, buoyed by such corporate stalwarts as Boeing, Costco and Microsoft, has shown tremendous resilience since 2008 and remains one of the fastest growing MSA’s in the country, fueled by the success of a number of technology-oriented companies including Amazon and Expedia.”

Excalante called the AT&T Wireless property “a one-of-a-kind telecommunications facility located in the heart of a dynamic market that can best be described as the Silicon Valley of the Pacific Northwest.”

Los Angeles-based Griffin Capital is the sponsor of Griffin Capital Net Lease REIT, Inc., a publicly-registered, non-traded real estate investment trust. Griffin Capital and its affiliates have invested over $26 million of capital into the REIT. Griffin Capital has a sixteen-year track record sponsoring real estate investment vehicles and managing institutional capital. The company has acquired or constructed over 11 million square feet of space since 1996, and currently manages a portfolio of more than 7.8 million square feet located in 12 states, representing approximately $900 million in asset value.

The exterior of the Fisher Plaza communications and data center complex in Seattle (Photo: Colleen Miller)

Hines Global REIT has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the Fisher Plaza data center hub in Seattle from owner Fisher Communications for $160 million, the companies said Thursday.

The deal for the complex marks Hines’ second purchase of a prominent “carrier hotel” property. In 2007 it bought One Wilshire, the leading telecom building in Los Angeles, for $287 million. The purchase price for Fisher Plaza was slightly higher than a recent appraisal that valued the property at $142 million.

“The acquisition of Fisher Plaza is consistent with the strategy of the Hines Global REIT to acquire well located, market leading assets in top performing cities,” said Charles Hazen, President and CEO of Hines Global REIT. “We look forward to continuing our growth in attractive Pacific Northwest markets like Seattle.”

Fisher Plaza is a Class A office, data center and retail campus near the Space Needle with approximately 294,000 rentable square feet. Internap (INAP) has a significant data center presence at Fisher Plaza, while other industry tenants include Adhost, Cogent Communications (CCOI), Electric Lightwave, AboveNet, Global Crossing, Time Warner Telecom and Qwest. Fisher Plaza also operates its own colocation space in the building.

“Over the past several years, we have strategically repositioned Fisher for the opportunities we see as a leading local media company,”  said Colleen B. Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fisher Communications. ”Fisher Plaza has been an asset that is not a central component of our business model and executing this transaction provides added flexibility in our effort to create additional value for our shareholders.”

Fisher Communications will remain the largest tenant at Fisher Plaza, with a 12-year lease for its corporate headquarters and Seattle television, radio, and internet operations.

The transaction concludes a process that began in early 2008, when Fisher initiated a review of alternatives to maximize the value of Fisher Plaza. The process was suspended in November 2008 due to financial market conditions. Fisher resumed its efforts to sell the property in March 2011.

A 2009 fire at Fisher Plaza  caused $6.8 million in damages, with Fisher Communications recovering about $5.8 million from insurers. The July 2, 2009 incident knocked payment processor Authorize.net offline, disrupting e-commerce for thousands of web sites.

Hines Global REIT is a Houston-based public (non-listed) real estate investment trust sponsored by Hines. The company invests in commercial real estate, and currently owns interests in 10 commercial properties.

The Westin Building in Seattle, where an adjacent parking garage is being transformed into a data center by Digital Realty Trust, Clise Properties and Equinix. (Photo: Rich Miller)

A parking garage in Seattle will soon become a major new data center for Equinix, with up to 1,000 cabinets of servers and storage replacing parked cars. The new facility will be located next to the Westin Building, the leading Internet hub in Seattle.

The Equinix data center will be jointly developed by Digital Realty Trust and Clise Properties, who will transform a six-story parking garage into a new facility that will nclude four floors of data center space. Digital Realty and Clise are 50-50 partners in both the Westin Building and the new project for Equinix.

Major New Capacity for Equinix

The new data center will add significant capacity for Equinix, which has two data centers in Seattle, including one at the Westin Bulding. It also reflects Seattle’s growth as a data center market, and an important gateway to the Asia-Pacific market.

The new Equinix site will add approximately 51,000 square feet of data center space and capacity for more than 1,000 cabinet equivalents, and support 4.1 megawatts of IT capacity. Equinix expects to invest approximately $60 million to build the new IBX data center, which is estimated to open in Q1 2013.

“We continue to see strong demand for Platform Equinix in the Seattle market, and we are investing in the Pacific Northwest to support the requirements of our expanding customer base,” said Charles Meyers, President of the Americas for Equinix. “By leveraging the real estate acquisitions and construction expertise of Digital Realty and Clise Properties, Inc. we will be able to bring our new Seattle IBX data center online quickly and efficiently.”

Build-to-Suit Approach

Equinix has signed a build-to-suit agreement with  Digital Realty (DLR) and Clise Properties, Inc., who will be responsible for funding the base building improvements and data center shell construction. This is the second project on which Digital Realty is building a custom facility for Equinix, as the two companies are working together on a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia.

“This year we have seen a significant increase in demand for our build-to-suit data center solution from customers that have large expansion requirements, such as Equinix,” said Michael F. Foust, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty. “With our financial resources and acquisitions and development expertise, we can readily deliver to customers even the most complex projects on time and on budget. We are very pleased to expand our successful partnership with the Clise organization on this important new facility.”

“We are very pleased to be working with Digital Realty on this important project for Equinix,” said A. M. Clise, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Clise Properties, Inc. “We have worked in close partnership with Digital Realty for a number of years at the Westin building, the Northwest region’s premier Internet Gateway data center. This new project represents our shared commitment to successfully meet our customers’ ongoing data center requirements.”

The exterior of the North Data Center at the Benaroya Company's new South Hills Business and Technology Park in Puyallup, Washington.

Semiconductor maker Marvell Technology has chosen The Benaroya Company’s South Hill Data Center for its disaster recovery requirements, the companies said today. Marvell selected the South Hill facility in Puyallup, Wash. after an extensive site selection process throughout the West Coast.

The South Hill Business and Technology Center features 56,605 square feet of finished raised floor space in the North Data Center on the campus and an additional 175,000 square feet of “cold shell” with power capacity. The facility recently earned Gold-level certification under the LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings.

“We are pleased to be working with Marvell to meet their data center requirements,” said Larry Benaroya, Principal of the Benaroya Company. “South Hill Data Center provides an ideal secure facility to handle the rapidly expanding demands of cloud computing, data storage and retrieval, and disaster recovery.”

The Benaroya Company recently said it will partner with Real Property Investors and O’Keefe Companies to acquire and develop data centers. The group’s strategy was reflected in Benaroya’s recent acquisition of a former HP data center in Boise, Idaho.

The exterior of the Fisher Plaza communications and data center complex in Seattle (Photo: Colleen Miller)

Representatives of Moelis & Company, which is marketing the building, told Globe Street that “interest is strong from national office and data center buyers, as well as local Seattle real estate players.”

Fisher Plaza is a Class A office, data center and retail campus near the Space Needle with approximately 294,000 rentable square feet. Internap (INAP) has a significant data center presence at Fisher Plaza, while other industry tenants include Adhost, Cogent Communications (CCOI), Electric Lightwave, AboveNet, Global Crossing, Time Warner Telecom and Qwest. Fisher Plaza also operates its own colocation space in the building.

A 2009 fire at Fisher Plaza  caused $6.8 million in damages, with Fisher Communications recovering about $5.8 million from insurers. The July 2, 2009 incident knocked payment processor Authorize.net offline, disrupting e-commerce for thousands of web sites.

Fisher Communications owns 20 television stations and eight radio stations, including Seattle’s KOMO TV and KOMO radio stations, which are housed in Fisher Plaza.

The South Hill Data Center in Puyallup, Washington, a project developed by the Benaroya Companies.

The data center development scene continues to get busier, as new players emerge and existing players team up on projects. A good example of this trend is today’s announcement that The Benaroya Company will partner with Real Property Investors and O’Keefe Companies to acquire and develop data centers.

The three companies have been partners on a variety of commercial projects in the Pacific Northwest over the past 25 years, including high tech business parks, office buildings, industrial parks and shopping centers. They now see an opportunity in the data center market.

“Our increased focus on data centers is based on the tremendous growth in demand for data center space” said Larry Benaroya, principal of The Benaroya Company. “We recently completed construction of our state of the art LEED Gold Certified South Hill Data Center in Puyallup, Washington. After meeting with many data center users and evaluating the dynamics of the market we have become convinced that there is a significantly larger need and demand.”

Boise HP Deal a Prototype
The group’s strategy was reflected in Benaroya’s recent acquisition of a former HP data center in Boise, Idaho.

“The U.S. market is filled with a large number of traditional high quality production facilities which are ideal for adaptive reuse as data centers,” said Mike McKernan, CEO of Real Property Investors. “Many companies also have existing data centers that no longer satisfy their needs. Our recent acquisition of a former HP data center in Boise is a good example.”

Real Property has worked with Benaroya on projects including the acquisition and sale of the former Komatsu silicon chip manufacturing facility in Hillsboro Oregon, and the acquisition and repositioning of both the Seattle-area South Hill Data Center and Boise Data Center.

The Seattle-based O’Keefe companies has developed or acquired in excess of four million square feet of commercial real estate projects to date.

“This isn’t just about consumer cloud computing” said Tom  O’Keefe, principal of O’Keefe companies. “There is a tremendous and rapidly increasing need for secure data center space for social media, business and financial, medical, legal and municipal requirements. Computers may be getting smaller but images and multimedia files continue to grow in size. Also, more efficient ‘green’ data center facilities are an absolute requirement for many users while they evaluate their future data center needs.”

The Benaroya Company is a full-service commercial real estate company founded in 1956. Benaroya is active in acquiring, developing and managing  data center, office, and industrial properties in the Pacific Northwest, and is also investing in high-tech companies throughout the region.

The Benaroya Company has aquired this former HP data center in Boise, Idaho.

The Benaroya Company has acquired a former HP data center in Boise, Idaho, the company said today. The Seattle-based developer recently opened its first data center project, the South Hill Data Center in Puyallup, Washington. HP sold the 60,252 square foot Boise data center as part of its global data center consolidation.

Benaroya said the expansion provides it with data center capacity in two active markets. The Boise Data Center sits on a five-acre property and offers 28,958 square feet of raised floor space with “medium- to low-density” power capacity. Space is available immediately at the facility, which is served by fiber providers Qwest, 360 Networks and Time Warner and supported by hydro-electric power. Boise’s power rates are approximately half that of most western states and are among the lowest in the United States.

“This acquisition expands our data center base regionally,” said Larry Benaroya of The Benaroya Company. “We believe Boise is a strong market for colocation and disaster recovery with significant demand for low to medium density data center space.”

Benaroya said Boise is attractive because of its low incidence of natural disasters and affordable power rates. Idaho Power has industrial rates of about 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour, but just announced plans to increase rates by between 10 to 14 percent.

In 2006, HP undertook an ambitious data center consolidation, migrating apps and equipments from more than 85 company-owned data centers into six newly-built facilities in Austin, Atlanta and Houston. In 2010 the company announced another major data center consolidation, this time affecting HP Enterprise Services (formerly EDS), which it acquired in 2008.

Benaroya’s  South Hill North Data Center recently earned Gold-level certification under the LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings. The facility features 56,605 square feet of raised floor space and electricity powered by hydroelectric and wind sources.

The Benaroya Company is a full-service commercial real estate company founded in 1956. Benaroya is active in acquiring, developing and managing  data center, office, and industrial properties in the Pacific Northwest, and is also investing in high-tech companies throughout the region.

The exterior of the North Data Center at the Benaroya Company's new South Hills Business and Technology Park in Puyallup, Washington.

The newly completed South Hill North Data Center in Puyallup, Washington has earned Gold-level certification under the LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings, the project’s developer said this week. The Benaroya Company developed the South Hill facility, which features 56,605 square feet of raised floor space and electricity powered by hydroelectric and wind sources.

As with many data centers in the Pacific Northwest, the location offers the opportunity to utilize outside air with air-side economizers and evaporative cooling to cool the facility at an extremely low cost. Puyallup is located about 20 miles south of the Seattle-Tacoma AirportTac International Airport, and about 35 miles from downtown Seattle.

“South Hill Data Center is very attractive both fiscally and environmentally,” said Larry Benaroya of The Benaroya. “Customers will enjoy savings of 35 percent or more in energy and maintenance costs due to the award-winning green design. We strive to be sensitive to green building practices by using sustainable design and technology to deliver very significant energy savings and the LEED Gold Certification is a strong validation of our efforts.”

Benaroya says the 92-acre South Hill campus is supported by a dedicated onsite substation with 42.5 megawatts of available power, which is expandable to 67.5 megawatts.

For more on energy-efficient data centers, see our Green Data Centers Channel and our Special Report: Data Centers & Renewable Energy.

Fisher’s board considered Huntingdon’s offer and “concluded that the proposal is not in the best interest of the shareholders,” the company said in a press release.  Fisher Communications owns 20 television stations and eight radio stations, including Seattle’s KOMO TV and KOMO radio stations, which are housed in Fisher Plaza.

Fisher Plaza is a Class A office, data center and retail campus near the Space Needle with approximately 294,000 rentable square feet. Internap (INAP) has a significant data center presence at Fisher Plaza, while other industry tenants include Adhost, Cogent Communications (CCOI), Electric Lightwave, AboveNet, Global Crossing, Time Warner Telecom and Qwest. Fisher Plaza also operates its own colocation space in the building.

A 2009 fire at Fisher Plaza  caused $6.8 million in damages, with Fisher Communications recovering about $5.8 million from insurers. The July 2, 2009 incident knocked payment processor Authorize.net offline, disrupting e-commerce for thousands of web sites.

The July 2, 2009 incident knocked payment processor Authorize.net offline, disrupting e-commerce for thousands of web sites, while also causing lengthy downtime for Microsoft’s Bing Travel service, domain registrar Dotster, colocation company Internap and web hosting provider AdHost,

An investigation by Power Science Engineering Inc. of Shoreline, Wash. found that the fire was probably caused by an insulation failure in an electrical bus duct that connected the building to the power grid. The failure of two bus ducts – enclosures housing copper bars to conduct electricity – in a basement power room of Fisher Plaza was likely caused by “progressive degradation” of insulation, which ultimately led the bus duct to fail.

In its latest earnings report, Seattle-based Fisher Communications says its primary property insurance carrier agreed to pay an additional $2.9 million to cover its losses at Fisher Plaza data center. Fisher had previously received a total of $2.9 million in reimbursements, bringing its total recovery to $5.8 million. Fisher previously reported that it incurred $6.8 million in cash expenses related to the fire, including remediation and capital projects.