Conditions in Texas make for a very favorable data center environment: corporate taxes are low; power is robust and relatively cheap; and telecommunications infrastructure is new and powerful. In addition to these benefits, North Texas also boasts inexpensive real estate, a low cost of living, and a deep and skilled labor pool.

Collectively, these elements make the Metroplex attractive to the most active data center developers such as Stream Data Centers and San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust, the world's largest wholesale datacenter provider. The REIT is currently developing Datacenter Park – Dallas, which consists of seven buildings totaling approximately 797,000 square feet, ranging in size from 15,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet.

In September 2009, Digital Realty Trust acquired a 60% joint venture interest in the 69-acre property, located in the heart of the Telecom Corridor, and immediately began construction on the first phase of the redevelopment. The site also contains several developable land sites and a private substation with 40 MW of immediate availability, which is expandable to up to 125 MW.

Stream selected Richardson for its newest data center because of its robust power and fiber infrastructure, Bolner says. The project contains 10,000 square feet of 36" raised floor data center space. It will be available for occupancy in August and can be divided into four quadrants or controlled by a single tenant. It is designed for the expansion of power and cooling infrastructure to 230 watts per square foot of critical load and will offer numerous security features including 24x7 on-site security, man traps, biometric scanners and numerous internal and external cameras.

Data center development is not limited to the Telecom Corridor and the north side of the Metroplex, either. In Mesquite, a close-in eastern suburb of Dallas, local developer and owner Capstar Commercial is redeveloping a manufacturing facility into a state-of-the-art data center.

By partnering with The Cambay Group of Walnut Creek, Calif., Capstar Commercial is transforming the facility that was formerly occupied by AT&T and Lucent Technologies into 3000 Skyline, a Tier III data center.

Scheduled for completion later this year, the facility is situated on a 90-acre site that has its own power substation, along with dual electricity transmission lines and fiber telecom. It will have a power supply of 100 million watts – more than five times the amount of power available in the new Cowboys Stadium.

3000 Skyline differs from Stream's Richardson facility and most of Digital Realty Trust's properties in that will be delivered in shell form for tenants to build out. "There's something for every data center user in the Dallas/Fort Worth market," Bolner says.