EATONTOWN, NJ–In the past 18 months, more than 1.5 million square feet of new data center space was delivered to the northern New Jersey market – and that was just the topping on a heaping-full plate, market experts tell GlobeSt.com.
Demand is proliferating for third-party-operated data centers in other major business centers across the country as well. In an UPDATE on the issue from the MidWest, GlobeSt.com's Brian Rogal explores the potential growing appeal to REIT investors in the market.
Earlier this month, the New Jersey Technology Council's held a “Data Center Summit” at Fort Monmouth where the Garden State was discussed as being “the center of the digital universe.” It is definitely the largest data center market in the country – and possibly the world, said Cushman & Wakefield's global director of data center research, Jeff West.
C&W's regional data center specialist, Sean Brady, tells GlobeSt. there are more than 70 third-party data centers in New Jersey. Right now, his company is marketing the Fort Monmouth site itself to data center developers. The redevelopment authority for the Fort recently sent out a second request for proposals for the shuttered Army base.
CommVault, a provider of data management, already has a new headquarters campus underway at the site. The first phase of construction is a 275,000-square-foot structure that will open this year; CommVault plans to build a complex that will total 650,000 square feet.
The Meadowlands is also emerging as a new “cluster site” for data centers, Brady says. In December, CoreSite opened NY2, a 280,000 square-foot data center in Secaucus that is connected to its NY1 facility in Manhattan, creating one of the most powerful, network-dense campuses on the East Coast.
At the Fort Monmouth event, several speakers talked about the impact of Superstorm Sandy on the data center market.
“The lessons learned from Sandy can highlight the importance of location with regard to flood plains and access for people and fuel,” said Chris Downie, CEO of Telx, another third-party data center operator. “We saw first-hand after the harrowing days of Sandy that the 100- and 500-year flood maps are being rewritten.
The CoreSite facility was specifically redesigned after the storm struck to withstand the highest flood waters.
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