T5 Acquires Los Angeles Building for Data Center

T5 Partners is expanding into the Los Angeles market with the purchase of a 121,000 square foot building in El Segundo, Calif. The property will be redeveloped to offer 12 to 14 megawatts of wholesale data center space, according to Peter Marin, president of T5 Partners.

The acquisition expands the operating footprint for T5 Partners, which has been actively marketing build-to-suit data center sites near Charlotte and an Atlanta facility offering wholesale data center space. "T5's plan is to build a national footprint of wholesale data center space," said Marin, who said the company is scouting two to three additional markets. "I think we're developing a solution that's in demand in this market."

The building at 44 North Nash Street was previously owned by Base Partners, a veteran developer of data center properties, which was marketing it as "powered shell" space with the power and fiber connectivity in place. T5 will instead build out data center space and market the property as wholesale "plug and play” raised-floor data center space. This model offers a lower up-front capital cost for the tenant, and quicker deployment than if the customer built a new facility on its own.

The facility is in El Segundo, a sub-market of Los Angeles near LAX airport, which is already home to large data centers for Digital Realty Trust and Equinix. El Segundo offers cheaper power rates then downtown Los Angeles, a key consideration for data center operators. Marin said T5 expects to have a rate of about 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

The property has an on-site 20MVA substation and 121,486 square foot shell, which may be further expanded in a second phase of the project. The space is configurable to client requirements, ranging from 2,500 square feet to 72,000 square feet.

T5 is currently building a second data center at its Kings Mountain campus in North Carolina, where IT outsourcing firm Wipro leased its first building.The company has has finished construction on a 146,000 square foot powered shell on a parcel at KingsMountain that can support nearly 600,000 square feet of  data center space. T5 is also marketing a 100,000 square foot building in Alpharetta, Georgia.