originally published in Data Center Dynamics

Ellis Partners acquires industrial property, leasing to Colovore

November 04, 2022

By Dan Swinhoe

US data center firm Colovore to develop a new data center in Santa Clara, California.

The company this week announced plans for a second data center location in the city, located at 3060 Raymond St. and immediately adjacent to its existing data center at 1101 Space Park Drive.

3060 Raymond– Google Maps

The new facility will deliver another 9MW of liquid-cooled, high-density colocation capacity offering 50kW-per-rack capacities. The first phase of capacity will be delivered in Q1 2024.

Colovore said it will not tear down the existing building but retrofit it, and has already received approval for power delivery from Silicon Valley Power.

Sat on a 1.7-acre plot, the existing two-story industrial building at 3060 Raymond was constructed around 1974 and spans 29,000 sq ft (2,700 sqm). The property – sat close to Equinix, CenturyLink, and Digital Realty facilities – was being marketed by Kidder Mathews and TS Commercial as a ‘prime data center site’.

The Registry reports the facility was bought by real estate investment firm Ellis Partners and leased the site to Colovore. Ellis acquired the facility from IT hardware wholesaler UNIXSurplus; while the sale price wasn’t shared, Point2Homes suggested the property was on the market for around $14.25 million.

“We are thrilled to add this data center asset to our long-term portfolio,” said Kevin Bocci, Vice President, Acquisitions at Ellis. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the Colovore team to deliver their second facility in Santa Clara.”

“When we opened our doors in 2013, touting 20 kW per cabinet in our Phase 1, many thought ‘power density’ wasn’t a big issue at the time,” said Sean Holzknecht, President and Co-Founder of Colovore. “We now support thousands of AI and GPU systems for Fortune 500 companies down to Silicon Valley startups, in hundreds of cabinets each drawing 15 – 50 kW per cab. The bottom line is that this data, and all these incredible AI and Big Data platforms, are really thirsty. The AI revolution is here and simply put, these servers demand purpose-built, liquid-cooled, high-density colocation environments and we look forward to continuing to deliver these innovative solutions to our customers.”

Colovore's existing 1101 Space Park Drive facility– Google Maps

“Companies of all sizes and across all industry verticals continue to deploy more and more compute-intensive servers and they want to optimize those deployments and IT footprints,” said Colovore co-founder Ben Coughlin. “Our high-density data centers allow customers to pack their racks full from top-to-bottom due to the robust power and cooling infrastructure we deliver. This reduces the total amount of space required, resulting in far lower monthly operating costs and capex, while significantly increasing IT operating efficiency and scalability. What customer wants to be forced to lease and pay for a 5,000-square-foot office if all it really needs is 1,000 square feet?

Founded in 2013, Colovore has been expanding its original single-story, 24,000 sq ft (2,230 sqm) facility incrementally since it launched in 2014, with the last 2MW expansion announced in February 2022.

The company’s investors include Digital Realty Trust and Silicon Valley real estate development firm Pelio & Associates.

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