Digital Realty Plans $488M Dallas Build-Out

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry (center) joins Digital Realty Trust CEO Mike Foust (left) and Richardson Mayor Gary Slagel (at right) in cutting the ribbon to makr the opening of Datacenter Park - Dallas.

A development team led by Digital Realty Trust plans to invest as much as $488 million in transforming a former Alcatel campus near Dallas into a huge data center development. Digital Realty held a grand opening ceremony Wednesday in Richardson, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry on hand to participate in the ribbon cutting.

Datacenter Park Dallas has more than 800,000 square feet of potential data center space in seven existing buildings and 100MW of available power. The 69-acre property also has land available for greenfield development of additional data center buildings.

Expanding in Telecom Corridor
The Richardson area has earned the nickname "Telecom Corridor" for its heavy concentration of telecom and data center providers. Even in this setting, the scope of Digital Realty's ambitious project was hailed as an economic boost to the local community. The company expects the construction and operation of Datacenter Park Dallas will create 172 jobs this year and 1,225 jobs through 2015.

"The ability to rebuild, reinvent and repurpose entire industries is key to economic survival in this increasingly competitive world," said Perry. "Over the last few decades in this country, we’ve seen a number of city, state, and even regional economies decimated when core industries fade away, move overseas, or get shouldered aside by newer technology.

"This facility shows that Texas is still competing and winning because of hardworking visionaries and committed economic development organizations who are willing to think bigger and work harder than anyone else," said Perry.

Digital Realty acquired 60 percent of the former Collins Technology Park through a joint venture with previous property owner Skyrise Properties/Fobare Development.The first phase of the redevelopment project includes improvements to the first 106,000 square foot building and building out six Turn-Key Datacenter PODs. Each POD will contain approximately 10,000 square feet of raised floor and deliver 1.125 megawatts of critical load.

By the time the park is completed, the annual power bill for the Datacenter Park Dallas could reach $52 million, according to Digital Realty. One data center has already been leased to a Fortune 500 global company, and another to a “leading IT service provider” (a previously announced lease to Terremark Worldwide).