T5 Data Centers has signed pre-leases with two enterprise customers at its T5@Chicago data center in Elk Grove Village in Suburban Chicago, the company said this week.
The most recent deal was with an S&P 500 company that needed immediate access to a Tier III data center in “Chicagoland,” the suburbs west of the city near O’Hare airport area. The customer was seeking space that had to be customizable and also meet the stringent security and administrative criteria of highly regulated companies.
“This was an incredibly fast transaction that incorporated several important factors including a creative growth structure and a flexible ramp schedule,” said David Horowitz, VP of Sales and Marketing for T5 Data Centers. “The complexity of these projects requires a cohesive team that communicates effectively and pays close attention to detail.”
T5 is one of the newest players in the area, having entered the Chicago market with its acquisition of a facility built by Forsythe Data Centers, which continues in place as the anchor tenant. The deal provided T5 with entry into a new market, as well as significant expansion capacity within an existing Tier III data center. The expansion potential includes space within the existing shell as well as land that will support an additional data center building.
Second Pre-Lease in Chicago
T5 previously signed a pre-lease with an enterprise tenant in Phase 1 of its buildout within the powered shell in Elk Grove Village. The company is currently in Phase 2 of construction, adding a new data hall with an additional 2 megawatts of capacity.
T5 Data Centers acquired the former Forsythe Data Center facility near Chicago in a sale-leaseback deal, with Forsythe continuing as a tenant. (Photo: Forsythe Data Centers)
Horowitz said the tight timeline with the most recent pre-lease was helped by the fact that T5 has its own facility management team, which also worked with Forsythe prior to the building’s acquisition.
“While the transaction structure remains instrumental in selecting a data center provider, our customers find tremendous value in the processes and procedures our T5 Facility Management teams have in place to ensure 100 percent uptime,” said Horowitz. “The level of transparency we demonstrate to our customers provides them with a level of comfort and control, as if our operations staff was simply an extension of their team.”
T5 plans to develop the remaining space in Elk Grove Village for wholesale or build-to-suit data center requirements. T5@Chicago is a 208,000 square-foot, LEED Silver certified data center, with an additional four acres adjacent to the building. The building features an N+1 electrical and mechanical topology, secure private data halls available from 540kW to 9.0MW, and the ability to easily customize operational controls in each data hall to accommodate each customers’ requirements.
Growth Trends in the Chicago Data Center Market
The greater Chicago market is home to more than 1.85 million square feet (SF) of commissioned data center space, representing 210 megawatts (MW) of commissioned power, according to DatacenterHawk, a Dallas-based research firm that tracks the availability of data center space. Demand for space is strong, as reflected in the vacancy rate of just 8.5 percent for the region.
The Chicago data center market appears poised for growth, with up to 200 MW of additional capacity planned for coming years.
For more on the Chicago market, we invite you to download the Data Center Frontier Special Report: The Chicago Data Center Market.
