CRG West Buys Virginia Data Center

CRG West has acquired a 285,000 square foot data center and office property in Reston, Virginia, continuing its expansion in major Internet markets. After an extensive search for new properties in the Washington, D.C. area, CRG has bought 12100 Sunrise Valley Drive, a facility previously used by America Online. CRG will invest $20 million in improvements to the facility, including connections to its existing data center at 1275 K Street in Washington, which has more than 40 networks in its meet-me room. 1275 K Street has been near full capacity for some time.

The building, which was "significantly remodeled in 2000," includes 60,000 square feet of raised-floor space and 180,000 square-feet of office space. The data center has power from separate substations, and CRG West said it will deliver customers up to N+1 or 2N power redundancies, with a critical load of up to 175 watts per square foot. Existing connectivity providers include Verizon, Level 3, Qwest and Sprint.

"We have found a great asset to offer best-in-class colocation space and services to enterprises and government users," said Rob Rockwood, chief investment officer, CRG West. "Our facility will meet government security requirements and offer the power densities and peering opportunities demanded by enterprises. The Washington, D.C. area is one of the key peering points in the Eastern United States and we expect to continue to play a significant role in its growth and development."

CRG West now operates more than 2 million square feet of carrier hotel and data center space in nine facilities in Los Angeles, San Jose, Chicago, Boston, Miami and New York as well as Washington, D.C. The company has been steadily increasing its national footprint of data center and carrier hotel properties over the last two years, as well as building its meet-me-room and interconnection business. In July CRG leased 50,000 square feet of space of 32 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan for its first New York City facility, and in May it bought the 70 Innerbelt in Somerville, Mass. and 427 LaSalle in Chicago.

It recently expanded its neutral Internet exchange service, Any2Exchange, into its buildings in Chicago, Miami and Washington.

"We'll need to do a couple months of construction to reinforce the power, cooling, and telecom distribution infrastructure, and plan to have the facility open for business at some point late 1Q08," CRG West noted in the Any2Exchange blog. "We will also establish DWDM connections between the 1275 K Street NW facility in Washington DC and Reston site to virtualize each facility's meet-me-rooms."