Suburban High Tech Development Taking Off

CHICAGO-After CenterPoint Properties announced its Exodus Communications development in October, developers have moved quickly to start a new high tech corridor in the suburban O’Hare Airport market. While the facilities so far have been single-tenant space, co-location telcom hotels may not be far behind.

“The suburban trend is taking off for web hosting and co-location space,” says Chris Epstein, president of DataCentersNow, which just announced a 110,000-sf O’Hare high-tech warehouse conversion. “Over the next year, suburban markets nationwide, especially those located near airports, will become the primary focus of telecommunications and data center development.”

Bob Hebbeler, US director of co-location at Band-X, the online telecom capacity exchange, says that the continuing fashion for city-center co-location development is petering out. “Eventually someone is going to need a big chuck of co-location space, and they are going to have to move out to the suburbs,” he says.