Data center developer EdgeCore Internet Real Estate will enter the Silicon Valley market, extending its data center building spree to a fifth major market. EdgeCore says it has acquired 12 acres of land in Santa Clara, where it plans to create a campus that can support four data centers spanning 550,000 square feet and up to 80 megawatts of capacity.
EdgeCore says it has commenced pre-construction activities in Santa Clara, and expects to complete the first phase of capacity (a 36-megawatt, 180,000 square foot building) during 2020.
“This is an important milestone in rolling out our wholesale data center platform across the US,” said Matt Muell, SVP Development at EdgeCore. “Santa Clara is the fifth location that we have acquired and commenced development on in less than 10 months as we systematically execute upon our goal to be the preeminent developer and operator of wholesale data centers in the United States.”
EdgeCore launched in February 2017 with plans to build large data center campuses in six North American markets. The new company is led by former CoreSite CEO and Tom Ray, and its lead financial backer is GIC, the sovereign wealth fund for the government of Singapore. The company has quickly acquired land for campuses in the Phoenix, Dallas Northern Virginia, and Reno markets, which can support 4.4 million square feet and 800 MW of data center capacity.
Builders Are Busy in Santa Clara
The EdgeCore announcement brings more inventory and competition to Silicon Valley, which is one of the largest and most important data center markets in the U.S., but also one of the most difficult places to build new data centers. The company is also using an earthquake-resistant design, and building vertically to make the the most of its real estate.
Santa Clara is the prime location for data center site selection because its municipal utility. Silicon Valley Power offers rates are meaningfully lower than the cost of power from PG&E in surrounding towns. But development sites have grown scarce in Santa Clara, prompting data center developers to seek sites with existing buildings that can be demolished to make way for data center campuses.
RagingWire and CyrusOne have acquired land in Santa Clara in recent months, building on a construction boom in which data center operators are seeking to deploy capacity on every acre of developable land. Incumbents players Vantage, Digital Realty and CoreSite are all building new campuses.
