Colo Demand in Paris Drives Equinix Expansion

Equinix is filling colocation space as fast as it can build it in Paris, and said today that it has begun construction on a fourth data center in the city to accommodate demand. The new data center, to be known as PA4, is scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2012.
The new facility will allow Equinix to continue to meet very strong demand for interconnection and colocation services in the Paris market. The first phase of Equinix' PA3 data center, which opened in April 2010, is now effectively full, and the second phase is expected to be full by the time it opens nt he second quarter of this year.

20 Percent is Pre-Sold
Equinix said PA4 will be located near the center of Paris, where "future data center developments are expected to face long lead-times to secure power in and around the city," the company said. Twenty percent of the space available in the first phase is already sold.

"Paris is a growing market for Equinix due to its strategic location in the world economy and the superior performance of our data center design and operations," said Eric Schwartz, President, Europe, at Equinix. "We continue to invest in Paris, and across Europe, to keep pace with the strong demand we’ve seen in this market. The new Paris IBX is an important addition that will support our growing base of network, financial, content, enterprise, and cloud and IT services customers and will further extend our leadership position in the European market."

PA4 will be built out in phases, eventually adding a total of more than 11,000 square meters (118,000 square feet) of space and more than 4,500 cabinet equivalents, positioning Equinix to be the leading data center provider in the French market. The first phase of the project, which will provide more than 1,500 cabinet equivalents when complete, is expected to cost approximately $145 million, with much of the investment occurring in 2012. The facility will be built using the latest energy efficient technologies and meet ISO9001 certification