Server Farm Realty Announces Chicago Tenant

Interconnection specialist Peerless Network has signed a long-term lease with Server Farm Realty for a new 12,600 square foot data center facility in downtown Chicago that will  launch a new colocation services offering. The Peerless facility will be located in 840 S. Canal Street, a 443,446 square foot building that Server Farm Realty acquired earlier this year and is redeveloping as a data center hub.

"Due to Peerless' rapid growth, our network has grown to include five major POPS in Chicago alone, and the new data center will allow us to consolidate them into a state of the art facility," said John Barnicle, President & CEO of Peerless. "We plan to invest nearly $5 million into the new site by the time it opens in the first quarter of 2012.  The new facility will give Peerless much more flexibility to accommodate its rapidly growing customer base by allowing us to quickly add capacity."

Server Farm Realty has 134,000 square feet of space available for leases in data center suites with flexible sizing starting at 1 megawatt of power. The company is upgrading the building’s electrical service to 40 megawatts   The eight story building  has access to 15 carriers including AT&T, Verizon, AboveNet, 360 Networks, Cogent, Level 3, CenturyLink/Qwest, Zayo, XO, Synesys, Intellifiber, Global Crossing and Paetec.

Server Farm Realty is the data center development arm of the Red Sea Group, an investment group based in Israel. The company is developing new facilities in three markets, and also owns several data centers that are fully leased to a large telecom company. CEO Avner Papouchado has been buying and selling data centers since 1999, taking a few years off after the dot-com bust.

Peerless Network is a privately held company headquartered in Chicago, which currently offers service in Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets in 36 states and over one hundred Local access Transport areas (LATAs).

Chad Freese and Aaron Kulick of CBRE, Inc. represented Server Farm Realty and  Alex Smith of Cushman & Wakefield represented Peerless Network in negotiating the transaction.