Harrison Street and fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty (1547), today announced the acquisition of the Pittock Block building in Portland, Oregon from Alco Investment Company for $326m. Specifically, Pittock Block is an important carrier hotel and colocation data center, with a focus on interconnection.
Pittock Block comprises a 302k sqft building and is one of the most connected buildings in the United States. Indeed, Pittock Block hosts 16 fiber-optic carriers and 179 other service providers. As an example, cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) and connectivity providers Cogent Communications, Hurricane Electric, PacketFabric, and Telia Carrier, are all tenants of the facility.
The data center represents one of only two primary internet exchanges in the entire Pacific Northwest. Notably, the other key internet exchange in the Pacific Northwest is the Westin Building in Seattle, which is owned by Digital Realty.
Pittock Block – Data Center Location
Portland has become an increasingly important data center location because it sits between San Francisco and Seattle. Additionally, Portland offers low latency connectivity to Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.
Hillsboro, located 18 miles to the west of the property, is one of the fastest growing data center sub-markets in the world. In turn, the growth of Hillsboro further fuels growth within Pittock Block. Furthermore, Pittock Block is strategically located with direct access to seven subsea cables. This makes the data center a premier internet exchange point (IXP) for the West Coast.
Harrison Street and 1547 – Pittock Block and Strategy
Harrison Street and 1547 plan to expand the data center and colocation capacity of Pittock Block over the next years. Additionally, the group will invest further capital into the building’s security and meet-me-room.
Pittock Block is the second investment for Harrison Street and 1547 following the acquisition of the Wells Building. Specifically, the Wells Building was another carrier hotel and data center located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Additionally, the Pittock Block acquisition is Harrison Street’s second carrier dense data center investment. Notably, Harrison Street has committed ~$1bn to digital infrastructure projects since 2018.
Harrison Street – Overview
Harrison Street is a Chicago-based private equity firm exclusively focused on alternative real assets. The firm has more than 185 employees and ~$30bn of assets under management.
Since inception in 2005, the firm has created investment solutions focused on demographic-driven, needs-based assets. The firm has invested across senior housing, student housing, healthcare delivery, life sciences and storage real estate as well as social and utility infrastructure.
1547 Critical Systems Realty – Overview
1547 Critical Systems Realty is a developer and operator of custom-designed data centers. Specifically, 1547 operates 1.3 million sqft of data center space in the United States and Canada.
Central to the company’s strategy is its ability to uncover the true intrinsic value of properties and opportunistically develop world-class data center facilities. 1547’s focus is on providing tenants with strategic, customized mission critical solutions from concept through completion.
