Telx Builds Custom Colo Center in North Jersey

Colocation and interconnection service provider Telx today announced plans for its first "greenfield" data center project, a 215,000 square foot facility it is building in Clifton, New Jersey adjacent to its existing site at the Mountain Technology Center at 100 Delawanna Avenue.

The project will expand the company's footprint of colocation space in northern New Jersey, where Telx says it is seeing active for highly-connected data center space. Customers in the new Clifton Cloud Connection Center facility will be able to connect to dozens of carriers through network connections to Telx facilities in Clifton and major Manhattan carrier hotels at 111 8th Avenue and 60 Hudson Street.

“The construction of this flagship facility demonstrates Telx’s long-term strategy to expand data center and interconnection services and gives our customers more choice and flexibility in available power density,” said Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx.

Custom-Built Data Center

The standalone data center will be constructed with Mountain Development Corp., Telx’s current development partner at 100 Delawanna Avenue. Telx plans to break ground in late 2011, and the entire building, including phase one of its data center colocation space, will be ready in late Q4 2012.

The company's 15 existing data center sites were all created in existing buildings, including skyscrapers in central business districts. With the new Clifton site, Telx will be able to construct a facility optimized from the ground-up for data center use. The three-story facility will house all the mechanical and electrical infrastructure on the third floor and the roof, allowing the first two floors to be dedicated entirely to raised-floor colocation space.

More Design Flexibility

That larger floor plates offer increased design flexibility. "There are no columns, and all the critical infrastructure will be off the floor," said Shepcaro. "This really gives us the opportunity to do more customization with a purpose-built facility. If a customer wants an enclosed suite, we can do that. Our return air plenums support both hot-aisle and cold-aisle containment."

Telx remains strongly bullish on the greater New York market. The company just opened 20,000 square feet of new colocation space at 100 Delawanna, and another 40,000 square feet at 111 8th Avenue in New York.

"We continue to see strength across our portfolio," said Shepcaro. "As we go into 2012 we're looking for additional space on the island of Manhattan."

Shepcaro said Telx is in discussions with Sabey Corp. about the company's project at 375 Pearl Street, the huge former Verizon facility that Sabey acquired last year. The first data center space in the building is expected to be brought online sometime in 2012.