A fund advised by CBRE Global Investors has acquired a three-building state-of-the-art data center portfolio located in Northern Virginia. Constructed in 2017, the buildings total 446,811 sq ft and are fully leased to a global cloud computing platform that offers services for computing, storage, networking and database analytics.
The 36-acre site is located at 45900, 45930, and 45950 Pathfinder Plaza in Sterling, Virginia, within a larger industrial park known as TransDulles Plaza. The property was a build-to-suit for the tenant and constructed to their exact specifications, making the buildings more efficient than traditional industrial buildings that have been converted into data centers. The property is surrounded by high-security steel fencing and is monitored by a full-time security staff via a guard booth and 24/7 surveillance. The windowless buildings have state-of-the-art cooling and ventilation systems, built-in diesel generators, 24-ft clear heights to house the maximum amount of racking systems, reinforced concrete slab floors, ESFR sprinklers with a fire pump and interior roof access with a lift for rooftop HVAC repairs. The buildings also were constructed with the flexibility to be converted to a traditional industrial use if needed.
Two of the most important requirements of any data center are access to power and fiber connectivity. The property’s location offers unmatched connectivity to power with a new substation built adjacent to the property and major fiber optic lines abutting the buildings, allowing data to flow at the fastest speeds over greater distances without degrading.
“Northern Virginia is the largest and most active data center market in the world with 70 percent of all internet activity passing through ‘Data Center Alley’ each day,” said Kim Hourihan, portfolio manager, CBRE Global Investors. “The market is attractive to data center users because of its world-class power and fiber network connectivity, low property and electricity costs, relatively low risk of natural disasters, access to major cloud providers and its business-friendly environment. And with the continued growth in cloud computing, coupled with expected increases in Defense and Homeland Security spending, we expect the demand for data center assets to continue to rise to accommodate ever-increasing data demands.”
*Assets under management (AUM) refers to the fair market value of real asset-related investments with respect to which CBRE Global Investors provides, on a global basis, oversight, investment management services and other advice and which generally consist of investments in real assets; equity in funds and joint ventures; securities portfolios; operating companies and real asset-related loans. This AUM is intended principally to reflect the extent of CBRE Global Investors' presence in the global real asset market, and its calculation of AUM may differ from the calculations of other asset managers.
