Quality Tech Buys 960,000 SF Atlanta Property

Quality Technology Services said today that it has acquired the partially-finished 960,000 square foot data center facility at 1033 Jefferson Street in Atlanta, which it purchased from MetroNexus, Morgan Stanley's data center real estate investment subsidiary. Quality has also purchased the U.S. hosting business of Globix, which is exiting hosting to focus on its NEON broadband network. Quality said it paid $20 million for the Globix assets, which included customers in Santa Clara, Calif. and New York. The price for the MetroNexus site was not disclosed.

The purchase continues a rapid expansion into the data center business for Quality, which already owns a 376,000 square foot facility in the Atlanta suburb of Suwannee that it purchased from e^deltacom last September. The company previously purchased multiple data centers in Kansas and Indianapolis, and said Tuesday that it is close to announcing the acquisition of a data center in New York.

1033 Jefferson, previously known as the Metro Technology Center Atlanta (MTCA), was built by Sears in 1954 as the company's southeast distribution center. The huge building was initially a joint project of MetroNexus and CoreLocation, which bought the site in 2000 and invested $80 million to convert part of it for telecom and data center use.

In 2001 Sprint leased nearly 100,000 square feet of space at MTCA for an e|Solutions center, but within a year decided to shutter the site as it fled the hosting business. By 2003 CoreLocation was out of business. MetroNexus began seeking alternate uses for the building, and in 2005 filed plans for 900 units of residential housing.

The facility currently houses a 100,000 square foot data center for Level 3, and Quality says it will be adding 200,000 square feet of additional raised floor in the coming months. "The addition of this facility to our portfolio expands our Atlanta footprint to over 1.3 million square feet and positions us well to meet the increased demand we are seeing for high capacity and high density data center space from corporate clients," said Mark Waddington, President of Quality Technology Services.

The Jefferson Street facility gets power from an 80 megawatt on-site substation dedicated to the Metro facility. The site has access to all major network providers with a presence in Atlanta. "We are designing the facility to support high-density power and cooling requirements," says Dave McGirt, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Facility Operations for QualityTech. "High density computing environments such as Blade Servers are having a significant impact on data center power and cooling systems and we are one of the few companies with facilities that can support these loads."

The deal for Globix gives Quality tech some additional customers and access to key Internet markets. "The addition of the Globix U.S. Hosting business is in line with our strategy and is one step towards achieving our goal to be the premier provider of managed services and data center facilities in the country," said Chad Williams, Chairman and CEO of Quality. "The New York and California areas are key pillars in that strategy" Williams added.