Digital Realty Acquires San Francisco Data Center

Digital Realty Trust has acquired data center properties in San Francisco and Atlanta for $148 million as it continues its initiative to buy fully-leased income properties, which generate revenue through rent from existing tenants.

Digital Realty (DLR) paid $85 million to acquire 360 Spear Street, a fully-leased 155,000 square foot data center facility located adjacent to its 365 Main Street facility in San Francisco. The release didn't identify the tenants, but the facility serves as one of the primary data centers for cloud computing provider GoGrid, which took over space originally developed by WorldCom. The building also houses facilities for Verizon and AT&T.

Digital Realty has also completed the $63 million acquisition of a three-story, 334,000 square foot data center near the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. The transaction was structured as a sale-leasebackwith the previous owner, a major US airline which will continue to occupy 167,000 square feet of space under a new 10-year lease agreement with Digital Realty. The balance of the data center facility is leased on a long term basis to a "leading provider of critical transaction processing solutions to companies operating in the global travel industry."

A "Strategic Asset" in San Francisco

"These acquisitions continue our strategy of investing in institutional quality data center facilities at attractive, risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders," said Scott Peterson, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Digital Realty. "The 360 Spear Street property adds a highly strategic asset, which abuts our 365 Main Street colocation facility in downtown San Francisco. While fully-leased today, this property has the potential to provide future expansion space for our colocation customers.

"The property in Atlanta adds a world-class facility with quality corporate customers to our global portfolio," Peterson said. "We believe that our investment management approach to acquiring, developing and operating data center facilities will continue to provide both our customers and our shareholders a long-term platform for growth."

Digital Realty Trust now owns 100 properties spanning 17.9 million square feet of space in 31 markets throughout Europe, North America, Singapore and Australia.