After $4M Data Center Upgrade, New Facility Is In The Works

DataBank announced Wednesday that it’s less than a month away from completing a $4 million upgrade to its Edina data center, a move that will add a handful of jobs. Meanwhile, the company is scouting sites for a second center in the Twin Cities, which has seen an influx of data center activity recently.
 
Dallas-based DataBank took over the Edina data center in March when it acquired Edina-based VeriSpace for an undisclosed sum. DataBank announced a couple months later that it would expand the center to serve a growing customer base in the area.
 
Vice President of Marketing Aaron Alwell told Twin Cities Business that the facility currently has three full-time employees onsite, but the company expects to make about five new hires for a sales and account management team when the upgrade is complete.
 
After the upgrade, the center will encompass more than 18,000 square feet, compared to 10,000 previously. The company said the expansion includes new power and cooling infrastructure, as well as new resources for customer use—such as conference rooms, lounge areas, and technical equipment staging facilities. Alwell said the center upgrade will be finished in less than 30 days.
 
“DataBank’s entrance into [the Twin Cities] through acquisition has put us in a great position to facilitate growth in the market,” CEO Tim Moore said in a statement. “Upgrades to the data center allow us to address existing client demand and attract new customers . . .”
 
DataBank’s confidence in the Minnesota market is demonstrated by the fact that the company is now planning and selecting a site for a second data center to accommodate further growth, said Alwell.

According to industry experts, the Twin Cities area is an “underserved” market for modern data centers—although it may not be for much longer.

Minnesota has been swarmed with data center expansion projects recently. For example, another Dallas-based data center services provider, Stream Data Centers, is currently building a 75,675-square-foot data center in Chaska.

Technology infrastructure provider Savvis, an arm of telecommunications giant CenturyLink, Inc., announced plans this fall to open a new 100,000-square-foot data center in Shakopee in the spring of 2014.

And additionally, Greenwood Village, Colorado-based ViaWest acquired the vacant former headquarters of Entegris, Inc., in Chaska with plans to convert the 158,000-square-foot office building into a new data center.