Compass Eyeing Dallas, Atlanta Data Center Markets update from August 2015

Compass Datacenters has acquired parcels of land in Dallas and Atlanta, both new markets for the provider, and added to its existing footprint in the Columbus market. The company plans to build dedicated customer facilities on each of the new sites.

The sites are available for builds with aggressive timelines, according to Compass CEO Chris Crosby. Pre-permitting, site planning, facility pre-planning, and other steps have already been completed, with all locations ready to go once customers sign. The company said it selected the three sites because of strong interest from potential customers.

Compass provides made-to-order data centers in whatever market a customer wants. The company uses a single, repeatable design to deliver data centers in short order and usually gets its facilities Tier III certified by the Uptime Institute.

With its flexibility on location, Compass targets companies wanting to establish data centers in emerging or second-tier data center markets that often have limited supply. Examples of its past builds include data centers for CenturyLink in Minnesota and for Windstream in the Nashville metro.

The land acquisition is notable because Dallas and Atlanta are both major established data center markets, suggesting the company is more directly competing with other wholesale providers in their backyards.

“Even in ‘major’ markets like Dallas and Atlanta, businesses want the functionality that we can deliver in a dedicated facility, such as a loading dock that you don’t have to share, dedicated storage and staging space, and total control over the site’s operations—at the same price point that they would find for traditional wholesale colocation,” said Compass CEO Chris Crosby

The Lithia Springs, Georgia, parcel is 23.5 acres and can accommodate up to five standard 1.2 MW Compass data centers. Economic incentives are available for data center projects there, and the area has rich, redundant power infrastructure. Services from two utilities are available: GreyStone Power and Georgia Power.

The Richardson, Texas, parcel is just over 10 acres in the suburban Dallas telecom corridor and has room for two of Compass' 1.2 MW data centers.

The 9.5-acre parcel of land in the New Albany Business Park in suburban Columbus is just north of the company's current customer in Ohio, American Electric Power. There's room for two Compass data centers there. The location also has robust power and redundancy with dual feeds in a looped system.