WiredTree Plans 60,000SF Chicago Facility

Managed hosting provider WiredTree will expand into 60,000 square feet of new data center space at 427 LaSalle Street in Chicago, the company said today. 427 LaSalle was bought in May by CRG West, which said at the time that it would renovate the building to add six megawatts of emergency back-up power.

WiredTree was founded in June 2006, and is among the new providers offering a "network within a network" design combining public and private networks. After just a year, the company needs more data center space.

"After an extensive evaluation process, we selected this facility because it has the redundant infrastructure and controls in place that our mission-critical hosting requires," said Zac Cogswell, WiredTree president. "Not only has the facility been recently renovated, it's located just a couple of blocks from our corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago."

The deal continues a busy month period for the Chicago data center market, which in recent weeks has seen the opening of large new data centers by Equinix and Stargate Colocation, as well as this week's announcement of huge Microsoft data center project in Northlake.

The new facility provides WiredTree with three 3,000 AMP 480Volt 3 Phase ComEd electrical feeds from multiple power sub-stations, three 2 megawatt generators, four 500KvA UPS systems, and four 300-ton chillers. 427 LaSalle has connectivity to Savvis, Level3, AT&T, Qwest, XO, Sprint-Nextel, Verizon, Abovenet and Cogent.

427 LaSalle was originally designed and built by Western Union and has been a central point for communications in the central United States since 1916. The facility is across from One Financial Plaza and adjacent to the Chicago Board of Trade. CRG West reportedly paid $34 million for the 162,000 square foot property.