Equinix Building Second Data Center in Dallas

Is there anyone who's NOT building a new data center in Dallas? That might make for a shorter list than the new project announcements. Today colocation provider Equinix (EQIX) said it will build a second data center in Dallas, unveiling plans to build a 70,000 square foot facility adjacent to its existing Dallas site.

In announcing new space in the Dallas data center market, Equinix follows the lead of Terremark (TMRK), SoftLayer Technologies, Stream Data Centers and Digital Realty Trust (DLR) in announcing new projects in 2010. This activity comes on the heels of a busy 2009 in Dallas, which saw new data centers from CoreXchange, Horizon Data Centers , CyrusOne, The Planet and GNAX.

The expansion will significantly increase Equinix’s presence in the fourth largest metro area in the United States, which is home to companies across many industries such as defense, telecommunications, mobility and cloud/IT technology services.

The DA2 IBX data center will be built out in two phases, Equinix said. The $25 million first phase will add 40,000 square feet of space, room for about 420 customer cabinets, and is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2011. The 30,000 square foot second phase will be built out as demand dictates.

“This expansion demonstrates the strong customer demand for Equinix services in the Dallas market,” said Peter Ferris, president, Equinix US. “The Dallas-Fort Worth market is one of the largest concentrations of companies headquartered in the United States, including several data-centric industries such as telecommunications and IT services that rely on Equinix data center services.”

Can Dallas handle all this data center space? At the close of 2009, Grubb & Ellis said that demand in Dallas was outpacing the supply of data center space. The real estate firm said the Dallas/Fort Worth market has absorbed about 1.5 million square feet of data center space in the last three years.

Other sources point to the complexity of the Dallas market, where the data center ecosystem runs the gamut, with providers spanning multiple niches - shared hosting, dedicated servers, colocation and wholesale data center space.

But the expansions by Equinix and Digital Realty - companies that surivived the dot-bomb bust and closley monitor data center demand - is a sign that some of the savviest players in the industry see more growth ahead in Dallas.