Vantage Expands With Project in Quincy

Vantage-night

A look at the Vantage V3 data center in Santa Clara, Calif. Vantage plans to build a new data center campus in Quincy, Washington, the company said today.

Data center developer Vantage Data Centers will build a large data center campus in Quincy, Washington and has lined up a Fortune 50 company as its first tenant, the company said today. The project is the second for Vantage, which was founded in 2009 and has quickly built and leased two wholesale data center buildings in Santa Clara, Calif.

Vantage, which is backed by the private equity fund Silver Lake Partners,  is under contract to purchase 63 acres of land in Quincy, a major data center hub in central Washington state that is already home to facilities for Microsoft, Yahoo and Intuit, with Sabey and Dell also building new data centers.

First Phase Fully Leased

Vantage plans to build 470,000 square feet of data center space on the property. The first phase will be a 133,000 square foot data center on 25 acres of land that has been fully-leased to a "Fortune 50 leading manufacturing and technology company," according to Vantage. The building will have 6 megawatts of critical power, expandable to 9 megawatts.

Subsequent phases will include a 105,000 square foot Enterprise Technology Center and 235,000 additional square feet of data center space. Ground breaking for Phase One will begin October 2011 with completion slated for August 2012. The Enterprise Technology Center will combine corporate office and data center space, housing up to 100 employees.

'Global Portfolio Options'

"Vantage Quincy will take what we accomplished in Santa Clara to a new level of scale, customization and innovation," said Jim Trout, Vantage Data Centers’ CEO. "Our Quincy facilities will surpass all expectations of today’s wholesale data centers and will be designed and developed with unprecedented collaboration between provider and end-user. In combination with Santa Clara, our customers will now be provided with global portfolio options for connectivity, network resources and immensely scalable, clean and green power."

Vantage selected Quincy because of the area’s low-cost hydro power served by the Columbia River Basin, which in some cases is available for less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour, one of the cheapest rates available in the United States. The facility is being designed to achieve Platinum certification under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system for energy efficient buildings. Vantage has earned LEED Platinum certification for its first Santa Clara facility.

Will Use Low-Emission 'Tier 4' Generators

Vantage said it planned to equip the new facility with generators meeting the EPA's Tier 4 standard, which is designed to reduce hazardous emissions from backup generators. Most data center generators are exempt from Tier 4 standards under an exception for gensets used for emergency backup. By meeting the Tier 4 standard, Vantage said its facility will have significantly lower emissions than typical generators.

Vantage's decision addresses expressions of concern from local residents about the growing number of diesel generators in Quincy, which generated debate last year when Microsoft applied to add more generators for the second phase of its campus. Over the last year, the Washington Department of Ecology has issued permits for an additional 95 generators at the Microsoft, Yahoo, Dell and Sabey projects. The Vantage project could add another 24 generators.