Colocation Data Center News Roundup: IO, Sentinel, CoreSite

IO to Build Three-Story Data Center in Phoenix

Data center modules now manufactured by BaseLayer inside an IO data center. (Photo: IO)

IO is planning to expand data center capacity in its native Phoenix market. The company has bought nine acres of land close to its existing data center there, where it plans to build a three-story facility that will be gradually populated by its famous data center modules, fabricated locally.

The company bought the land in February and plans to start construction in late 2016, according to a press release.

The modules will be produced by BaseLayer, which is the second of two companies the former IO was split into last year. BaseLayer is a technology company, producing and designing modular data centers and data center management software, while IO is continuing as the data center colocation provider.

Sentinel Kicks Off Big North Carolina Data Center Expansion

On-site electrical substation at Sentinel's North Carolina data center. (Photo: Sentinel Data Centers)

Sentinel Data Centers has started construction on the second phase of its Durham, North Carolina, data center. The project will add 120,000 square feet total, with 50,000 square feet of data center space and 10MW of power.

The 100,000-square foot first phase of the facility is nearing capacity. Sentinel has already pre-leases some of the space in the future second phase, expected to come online this summer.

The company has been touting low cost of operating data centers in North Carolina, highlighting the state’s sales tax exemption on IT purchases by data center tenants and power rates below $0.042 per kWh.

CoreSite Scores another Big Tenant in Santa Clara

CoreSite's SV4 data center in Santa Clara, California. (Photo: CoreSite)

CoreSite Realty Corp. announced that a Fortune 500 company has pre-leased the entire second phase of a big new data center it is building on its Silicon Valley data center campus in Santa Clara.

The customer, whose name CoreSite did not disclose, has agreed to take the entire 80,000 square feet of data center space in the 230,000-square foot SV7 building’s second phase, which the data center provider expects to complete by July. About half of the similarly sized first phase has been pre-leased too.

Silicon Valley has been an especially hot data center market recently, with constant shortage of supply and a lot of demand. This is a third recent announcement of a big customer win in Santa Clara by CoreSite. The company said last year it was also building a separate 140,000-square foot data center for a single customer.

CoreSite hasn’t disclosed any names of the companies it signed the recent leases with, but a report by the commercial real estate company North American Data Centers said at least two of them were Uber and Amazon. Uber, the report said, signed for 4MW of capacity, and Amazon Web Services signed for 130,000 square feet of data center space.