Savvis CenturyLink Plans Minneapolis Data Center

Savvis, the cloud infrastructure arm of CenturyLink, is the latest data center provider to expand into Minneapolis/St. Paul, one of the hottest regional markets in the country. Savvis today announced plans to open a new data center in Shakopee, Minn. in spring 2014.

To build the facility, Savvis is teaming with Compass Datacenters, which is seeing increased traction for its strategy of building modestly-sized wholesale facilities in secondary markets. Compass is building partnerships in the service provider market, where it has teamed on projects with Windstream (Raleigh and Nashville), Iron Mountain (Boston area) and now Savvis CenturyLink.

The Savvis MP2 Minneapolis data center will support 4.8 megawatts of IT load and offer 100,000 square feet of raised floor space. It will open with an initial 1.2 megawatts and 13,000 square feet of raised floor space.

"The Twin Cities area has long served as a hub of activity to retailers, consumer brands, healthcare and media companies – all of which need more convenient and secure ways to access, maintain and manage their rapidly expanding data," said Jeff Von Deylen , president, Savvis. "Our investment in the MP2 data center signifies our strong commitment to providing businesses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region with access to world-class colocation, cloud and managed-hosting services."

Compass will develop the data center on 10 acres of property it owns in Shakopee, and lease the facility to Savvis.

"We are excited to partner with CenturyLink's Savvis organization, which combines a global leadership position in data center excellence with a deep understanding of Minnesota market needs through the existing local CenturyLink presence," said Chris Crosby, chief executive officer of Compass Datacenters. "Working with Savvis to quickly facilitate expansion in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, we've developed a streamlined strategy for future expansion and response to the growing demands of businesses in the region."

Savvis operates more than 50 data centers worldwide, with more than 2.4 million square feet of gross raised floor space throughout North America , Europe and Asia. It was acquired by CenturyLink in 2011.