DataBank to Lease Dallas Site From Digital Realty

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An aerial view of the massive Digital Realty Data Center Park in Richardson, Texas.

Back in March we reported that DataBank was expanding with a new data center in north Dallas. Today the company released additional details for the facility, which will be housed in a stand-alone facility at Digital Realty's Datacenter Park Dallas campus in Richardson that will accommodate up to 60,000 square feet of technical space.

The new facility expands Databank’s presence in the Dallas market, where the company operates more than 140,000 square feet of space in a former Federal Reserve Bank facility in downtown Dallas. The north Dallas facility will be converted into build-to-suit data halls (“pods”) in a multi-phase construction process. The first of the four planned 10,000 square foot pod will be available to customers in the fourth quarter of this year. Facility specifications include dual 10MW utility feeds, a custom high density power delivery architecture, and access to top network providers.

"We could not be more pleased with the new facility’s location," said Tim Moore, CEO of DataBank. "To construct a facility that meets DataBank standards we needed a unique site combining ultra-high power availability and a dense concentration of fiber providers. Our partners at Digital Realty were able to provide us with a unique and premium property in a stellar data center park setting.” Moore continued, “DataBank’s product is anchored on a 100% uptime availability SLA for enterprise, hosting and cloud providers that make up the bulk of our client base. Also, this location allows us to duplicate our product in North Dallas."

Moore joined DataBank after the company was acquired by Avista Capital last June. Avista, a private equity firm with about $4 billion in capital, said it intends to invest in expanding DataBank’s data center footprint, and may acquire other properties or companies.

“DataBank approached Digital Realty looking for a solution that would give it complete control over its business and technical operations,” said David Caron, Senior Vice President, Portfolio Management at Digital Realty. “Our Powered Base Building data center solution supported DataBank’s vision to expand its business, how, when and where it was needed.”

The new lease is the latest in a series of deals in which leading service providers have leased large chunks of wholesale data center space from Digital Realty at its huge Richardson complex. Both Terremark and Rackspace have turned to Digital Realty for expansion space at the 69-acre Datacenter Park, a $488 million project spanning seven buildings with a total of 797,000 square feet.