San Francisco company acquires 60 percent interest in Richardson redevelopment project

by PegNews wire

DALLAS — Digital Realty Trust, Inc., the world's largest wholesale datacenter provider, announced that it has acquired a 60% joint venture interest in a redevelopment project located in Richardson.

Formerly known as Collins Technology Park, the new Digital Realty Trust Datacenter Park - Dallas consists of seven buildings totaling approximately 797,000 square feet, ranging in size from 15,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet. The 69-acre property also contains several developable land sites and a private substation with 40 MW of immediate availability, which is expandable to up to 125 MW.

"The addition of this property to our redevelopment portfolio illustrates Digital Realty Trust's ability to identify and execute on unique acquisition opportunities around the country. By entering into this joint venture, we've added substantial additional inventory to satisfy our customers' ongoing demand for Turn-Key Datacenter, Powered Base Building, and build-to-suit space in a market where we are essentially fully leased at our existing sites," commented Scott Peterson, senior vice president of acquisitions for Digital Realty Trust. "We believe that we will be able to realize significant economies of scale though our existing operating platform and achieve attractive risk adjusted returns while offering flexibility of product within one property that will greatly expand the addressable customer market." Chris Kenney, vice president of acquisitions for Digital Realty Trust, added, "This transaction is a great example of our ability to maintain relationships with owners and sellers of strategic data center properties in top markets. We have worked with our new partner off and on over the last 18 months, which ultimately resulted in the joint venture transaction we are pleased to announce today."

The park is capable of supporting Powered Base Building, Turn-Key Datacenter, as well as ground up Build-to-Suit solutions. The company plans to redevelop the property in phases. Phase I of the project will focus on completing Powered Base Building 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 1125kW of critical load. The timing and build out of the subsequent phases will be subject to market conditions.

"This acquisition positions Digital Realty Trust as the largest wholesale datacenter provider in the Dallas/Fort Worth market," said Brent Behrman, vice president of global sales for Digital Realty Trust. "With its availability of power, fiber and our team of datacenter experts, the Richardson campus will be the premier datacenter facility in the Southwest and the epicenter of the Dallas Technology community. Utilizing our design and construction team and POD Architecture program, we expect to have Turn-Key Datacenter product available in early 2010."

Source: Digital Realty Trust, Inc.