Digital Realty Acquires Six-Building Flex Office Portfolio

AUSTIN, TX-Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a leading provider of data center solutions has completed the acquisition of a six-building portfolio consisting of operating data centers and flex office space totaling approximately 337,000 square feet at the MetCenter Business Park in Austin. The overall portfolio is currently 90% leased to a variety of data center, biotechnology, technology and/or telecommunications enterprises. Two of the six buildings, totaling approximately 100,000 net rentable square feet, are operating data centers that are 100% leased to three tenants. The remaining four properties consist of flex office space. The purchase price was $31.9 million. “The acquisition of this portfolio achieves several key objectives for us,” said Scott Peterson, chief acquisitions officer at Digital Realty. “It expands our existing data center footprint in the Austin market, while providing stable cash flow immediately at an attractive going-in cap rate. Second, it provides near-term opportunity to add value by lease existing vacant space. And third, it offers the option to convert a portion of the property to data center space over the longer term as leases expire. The six buildings are located adjacent to Digital Realty’s data center at 7500 Metro Center Drive, approximately five miles southeast of the Austin central business district, and nearby Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.“This acquisition adds inventory to a market where we have already seen substantial absorption at our existing facilities, as well as strong demand from enterprise customers,” said Michael Foust, CEO at Digital Realty. “It is a continuation of our strategy of growing a world class data center portfolio in markets where our customers want to be located.”