Digital Realty Buys More London Properties

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) has purchased a business park in suburban London, and will convert one of the facilities into a data center, the company said today. Digital Realty's purchase of Foxboro Business Park for $45.1 million will help meet strong demand for mission-critical space in the greater London market.

The Foxboro property includes three buildings, two of which are fully leased. Foxboro Unit 1, an existing 20,000 square foot data center, is fully leased to a "leading international geophysical company." Unit 2 is a 31,000 square foot warehouse that is 100 percent leased to a home appliance manufacturer. Unit 3 totals over 96,000 square feet of vacant space, which Digital Realty will convert into data center space using its phased Turn-Key Datacenter program.

The Foxboro deal comes just three weeks after Digital purchased Cressex 1, a 51,000 square foot building in suburban London that will be converted into Turn-Key Datacenter space. The expansion reflects the strong demand for data center space in London, where supply has been tight for several years and infrastructure is being beefed up ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

"We are continuing to focus on adding both income producing assets as well as buildings suitable for redevelopment to meet the ongoing demand for Turn- Key Datacenters in the supply-constrained London market," said Michael Foust, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Trust. "This property meets both criteria, bringing an ideal combination of stability and longer term growth to our expanding European portfolio."

Digital Realty Trust will be upgrading the power capacity at Foxboro to offer up to 15 megawatts of customer IT load, according to Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. "This project gives us an opportunity to offer as many as ten 5,800 square foot Turn-Key Datacenter PODs to corporate customers that have requirements for high quality datacenter space in the London market over the next few years," said Crosby. "With our expertise in developing to green standards, including BREEAM in Europe and LEEDS in the US, we plan to deliver these PODs as sustainable datacenters."

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns 70 properties totaling 12.1 million rentable square feet, including 1.8 million square feet of space held for redevelopment, in 26 markets throughout North America and Europe.