Carter Validus Sells 15 Data Centers for $1.06 Billion

Oct. 24, 2017
Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT has sold 15 data center properties for $1.2 billion in two transactions, with Digital Realty buying a Chicago property, and a Singapore firm acquiring a 14-property portfolio.

Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT has sold 15 data center properties for $1.06 billion in two transactions, the company said today. The company agreed to sell a data center in suburban Chicago to Digital Realty, while selling a 14-property portfolio to Singapore-based real estate firm Mapletree.

In the first transaction, Digital Realty will buy a data center  in Northlake, Illinois  for $315 million. The data center was built by Ascent Corp., which operates it as a multi-tenant wholesale data center and colocation facility. Carter Validus bought the property in 2014 for $211.7 million, while Ascent continues to operate and manage the facility.  The facility, known as CH2, is several miles from a Digital Realty campus on Grand Avenue in Franklin Park.

Carter Validus also announced that it has agreed to sell a 14-property portfolio to an affiliate of Mapletree Investments and Mapletree Industrial Trust (MIT), a Singapore Exchange listed Real Estate Investment Trust, for approximately $750 million. The 14 data centers are 97 percent occupied by 15 tenants, with a total area of 2.3 million square feet The transactions are expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Global Investors Like Data Centers

The deal includes 180 Peachtree Street, a major mixed-use property that houses data center space for Equinix, Green House Data, Level 3 and TW Telecom, along with the city of Atlanta’s 911 operations. It was originally a Macy’s store, and was retrofitted for data center and office use.

The sale to Mapletree reflects the growing interest in the data center sector from global investment firms. Mapletree Industrial Trust recently announced an expanded investment strategy, which includes a focus on income-producing data centers around the world. The company owns four data centers in Singapore, and intends to pursue acquisitions in Europe and other parts of Asia as well as the United States. The company’s appetite is substantial, as it wants overseas data centers to comprise up to 20 percent of its assets.

Carter Validus has been a major acquirer of income-producing data centers, which are typically leased to a single-tenant with quality credit.

“The proposed acquisition is in line with the expansion of MIT’s investment strategy to acquire data centers worldwide beyond Singapore,” said Tham Kuo Wei, Chief Executive Officer of Mapletree Industrial Trust, who called it “a prudent and measured approach for MIT’s first overseas investment in the United States, the largest data center market in the world.”

Some of the buildings being acquired by Mapletree include:

  • 180 Peachtree Street, Atlanta
  • 7337 Trade Street, San Diego
  • 402 Franklin Road, Brentwood
  • 2000 Kubach Road, Philadelphia

We are seeking the full list of buildings and will provide more details as they are available.

“We are pleased to extend our presence in the United States in a sector with strong growth prospects,” said Hiew Yoon Khong, Group Chief Executive Officer of Mapletree Investments. “The target portfolio is anchored by long leases from established tenants, including Fortune Global 500 corporations and NYSE-listed/Nasdaq-listed companies. The growth in data creation and cloud computing will continue to drive the demand for data center space, especially in the United States, leveraging on the highly developed infrastructure and favorable business environment.”

Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT was created in 2012 to invest in data centers and healthcare facilities such as medical office buildings, specialty surgical centers, and hospital properties. It has since accumulated $3.5 billion in assets, including 64 healthcare facilities and 20 data centers.

Carter Validus is a non-traded public REIT. Like a public REIT, they invest in real estate, make regular SEC disclosures, and distribute 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders. A major difference is that non-traded REITs don’t trade on a national securities exchange, and thus are less liquid investments (meaning funds are harder to buy and sell than with an exchange-traded REIT).

Over the years, Carter Validus has acquired facilities owned by AT&;T, IO, Ascent and Stream Realty, among others. Its list of tenants includes Equinix, Level 3, Internap and Peak 10.

About the Author

Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.

Sponsored Recommendations

Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centers

Unlock the power of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting in the data center industry with our comprehensive guide, proposing 28 key metrics across five categories...

The AI Disruption: Challenges and Guidance for Data Center Design

From large training clusters to small edge inference servers, AI is becoming a larger percentage of data center workloads. Learn more.

A better approach to boost data center capacity – Supply capacity agreements

Explore a transformative approach to data center capacity planning with insights on supply capacity agreements, addressing the impact of COVID-19, the AI race, and the evolving...

How Modernizing Aging Data Center Infrastructure Improves Sustainability

Explore the path to improved sustainability in data centers by modernizing aging infrastructure, uncovering challenges, three effective approaches, and specific examples outlined...

iStock, courtesy of AFL

Hyperscale: The AI Tsunami

AFL's Alan Keizer and Keith Sullivan explore how AI is driving change and creating challenges for data centers.

White Papers

Dcf Hypertec Sr Cover 2023 06 23 10 12 23
Dcf Hypertec Sr Cover 2023 06 23 10 12 23
Dcf Hypertec Sr Cover 2023 06 23 10 12 23
Dcf Hypertec Sr Cover 2023 06 23 10 12 23
Dcf Hypertec Sr Cover 2023 06 23 10 12 23

New Data Center Efficiency Imperatives

June 23, 2023
Data center demand is increasing sharply thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, IoT devices, automation, cloud computing, and various other use cases. As a result, power...