T5 Adds Second Tenant to Chicago Facility

By Tudor Scolca

T5@Chicago

T5 Data Centers has entered an agreement for a second pre-lease at its Phase 2 of T5@Chicago build-out. The enterprise client is an S&P 500 company which will join the first pre-leased tenant, a hospital network, at the upcoming data hall expansion.

The two clients both needed a custom-built IT solution which can accommodate demand for future growth. Both companies also demanded a highly-secure environment with on-site system management. The hospital network will transfer all its IT operations at T5’s facility, taking advantage of its purpose-built infrastructure. The S&P 500 client required a Tier III facility which could be tailored to specific IT demands and meet stringent security criteria.

“The complexity of these projects requires a cohesive team that communicates efficiently and pays close attention to detail. The level of transparency we demonstrate to our customers provides them with a level of comfort and control as if our operations staff was simply an extension of their team,” said David Horowitz, vice president of sales and marketing, in a prepared statement.

Chicagoland demand

A stable and extensive infrastructure is what drove T5 to buy and expand the Elk Grove facility. More than 15 network providers are present, offering access to both fiber and the cloud. Vacancy rates in the Chicago metro are around 5 percent, while demand is high, according to Horowitz. Approximately 150 million square feet of office space are in use in Chicago, with companies showing a clear tendency to migrate their IT operations to specialized colocation, wholesale and cloud solutions.

“Chicago is becoming one of T5’s hottest markets. We are experiencing more demand from the corporate enterprise users who are requiring highly-secure, scalable purpose-built data centers. We are able to provide this latest Chicago tenant a customizable build-out and a scalable approach to manage future growth. Allowing our customers to control their infrastructure and have visibility into their operations like it was their own internal data center is a major differentiator that enterprise customers appreciate,” said Horowitz in prepared remarks.

T5@Chicago is a purpose-built, 208,000-square-foot data center in Elk Grove Village, Ill. T5 acquired the facility in 2016 and has overseen its operations through T5 Facilities Management, the data center management arm of T5. The LEED Silver-certified facility is currently in its second phase of development, which will add two more megawatts of capacity, and has scalable potential of up to 170,000 square feet and 16 megawatts.

Image courtesy of T5 Data Centers