Harrison Street, a private equity firm, and Lincoln Property Company, a commercial and residential real estate investor, have formed a joint venture to acquire a 190-acre land site in New Albany, Ohio, a suburb located 15 miles northeast of Columbus, the capital and largest city in Ohio. On this land, Harrison Street and Lincoln Property intend to construct a mixed-use data center and industrial campus, known as Silicon Heartland Innovation Park, which has the potential to support 144 megawatts of critical load and 1.2 million sqft of hyperscale data centers.
Columbus (New Albany), Ohio Data Center – Harrison Street, Lincoln Property
Lincoln Rackhouse, the data center division of Lincoln Property Company, will immediately begin development of Phase 1 of its 144-megawatt, 1.2 million sqft hyperscale data center campus in Columbus (New Albany), Ohio. As shown below, the land site is located north of Jug Street, east of Beech Road, and west of Harrison Road in New Albany, Ohio.
In terms of power, Harrison Street and Lincoln Property’s data center development plan in Columbus (New Albany), Ohio includes the construction of an on-site 200 MVA electrical substation.
Also, Lincoln Property, via the entity LPC Midwest LLC, has secured a 15-year, 100% real estate tax abatement, with general employment zoning. Therefore, the property can accommodate a wide range of real estate use types including data centers, life sciences, manufacturing, and e-commerce/logistics.
Columbus, Ohio – Data Center Market
Columbus and its suburb of New Albany, Ohio are at the center of a “triangle” between the three major U.S. data center markets of Northern Virginia, New York / New Jersey, and Chicago, as well as key long-haul fiber routes between these important markets. Geographically, Columbus can provide low-latency connectivity to major population zones in the Midwest and Northeast, United States.
Additionally, Ohio offers comparably low power costs and sales tax rates for the Midwest region. While the state’s sales tax abatement program offers 100% exemption of sales tax on construction materials, computer equipment, mechanical & electrical equipment, cooling systems, and power infrastructure.
With this market backdrop, hyperscalers, including cloud service providers (CSPs) and large internet companies, are driving significant demand for new hyperscale facilities from multi-tenant data center (MTDC) operators in Columbus, Ohio.
Hyperscalers
The following cloud service providers (CSPs) and large internet companies have existing deployments or are opening new capacity in Columbus, Ohio:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS GovCloud (US-East) cloud region, known as us-gov-east-1, has 3 availability zones. Additionally, the US East (Ohio) cloud region, known as us-east-2, has 3 availability zones
- Google Cloud: investing $1.6bn in its Columbus (US) cloud region, which will have 3 availability zones when it opens in 2022. Specifically, Google Cloud operates a $600m data center in New Albany, Ohio and plans to invest an incremental $1bn in the area
- Meta Platforms (Facebook): located at 1 Community Circle in New Albany, Ohio. Meta is building a total of 7 data centers at this campus as part of a $1.5bn+ investment, which will span a total of 3.5 million sqft
Multi-Tenant Data Center (MTDC) Operators
Multi-tenant data center (MTDC) operators focused on the hyperscale segment are active in Columbus, Ohio, many of which have projects specifically in New Albany, Ohio. For example, hyperscale data center developers and operators in the Columbus market include:
- Cologix: as part of its Scalelogix program, Cologix is developing a 40-megawatt, 250k+ sqft hyperscale edge facility called COL4 in Columbus, Ohio. Presently, in Columbus, Cologix serves large capacity deployments out of its 14-megawatt COL3 facility which is adjacent to its own meet-me rooms at COL1 and COL2
- Compass Datacenters: built two customer-owned data centers in the Columbus market, including one in New Albany, Ohio’s New Albany Business Park
- STACK Infrastructure: operates a 10-megawatt, 156k sqft facility, known as NAL01, in New Albany, Ohio. Additionally, STACK has 17 acres of land available to construct a 32-megawatt build-to-suit (BTS) data center expansion, known as NALL1, which is directly adjacent to its NAL01 facility in New Albany, Ohio
Harrison Street – Digital Infrastructure
Harrison Street, a private equity firm, is headquartered in Chicago and has $46bn in assets under management (AUM). Since 2018, Harrison Street has invested $2.3bn in digital infrastructure, including powered shell data centers, carrier hotels, and dark fiber. Specifically, the firm’s investments include:
- Wells Building (MIWI1): 160k sqft carrier hotel and colocation data center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Pittock Block (PTOR1): 302k sqft carrier hotel and colocation data center in Portland, Oregon
- CIM Group Portfolio: four data centers, located in the three U.S. markets of Chicago, Illinois; Orangeburg, New York; and Cheyenne, Wyoming
- SummitIG: 600+ route miles of metro (intra-city) and regional (inter-city) dark fiber throughout Virginia
Finally, in January 2022, Harrison Street, in partnership with American Real Estate Partners (AREP), committed $1bn to develop six powered shell data centers, representing 2.1 million sqft of data center space, in Northern Virginia.
