CHICAGO—The increasingly common use of smartphones sent demand for new data centers soaring in 2016, and the resulting development boom shows no sign of abating. According to a new mid-year report from Chicago-based JLL, data center construction in North America has so far increased 43% from 2016. Leasing activity slowed down from the breakneck pace seen in the first half of 2016, but experts say all the signs point to the sector getting another boost over the next six months.
“In the first half of 2016, we saw the large cloud providers lease a tremendous amount of space,” Curt Holcomb, a Dallas-based executive vice president with JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. And these firms seem to have taken a breather this year as they concentrate on utilizing the space taken up in 2016.
In the first half of last year, users absorbed 249.1 MW, but during the same time frame this year that figure shrunk to 186.2 MW. By the end of 2016, with cloud providers in the lead, users had absorbed more than 350 MW in the US, and 46 MW in Canada.
Continue Reading for Free
Register and gain access to:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
