Leading Global Wholesale Datacenter Provider

Rubicon Saves World’s Largest Wholesale Data Center Provider Over $2 Million on Site Selection Costs

The Customer

This leading global wholesale datacenter provider delivers custom data center solutions for global customers in financial services, IT, Internet enterprises, and other industries. Its over 90 properties, excluding one property held as an investment contain applications and operations critical to the day-to-day operations of technology industry tenants and corporate enterprise data center tenants. Comprising approximately 16.7 million rentable square feet, including 2.1 million square feet of space held for redevelopment the company holds portfolio markets throughout North America, Europe and Asia

The Challenge

Early in the company’s history, the company’s management approached Rubicon for site selection guidance when establishing a data center colocation presence in New Jersey.

Engineers hired by the data center provider for the project were having difficulty determining the degree of power availability at the proposed site. In addition, the proposed site master plan required the construction of an accessory building in order to yield the 90,000 square feet of data center space the data center provider desired. The plan also included significant variances required by the local township.

The Approach

Rubicon’s experts quickly determined that the facility’s landlord had inadvertently misrepresented the power capabilities of the site. They pointed out the discrepancy in electrical distribution and determined that it would cost $2 million to provide the required power. As a result, the data center provider received a $2 million concession from the landlord.

Rubicon also reviewed the master design/build plan, which had been drawn up by another engineering firm. The objective was to make the site variance-free, eliminate the accessory building, and yield more data center capacity. Rubicon quickly identified design/build aspects of the plan that could be changed to yield 60,000 additional square feet of space for the same capital cost of the original plan.

“When I looked at the structural drawings for the buildings, I noticed that the column footings were at different elevations,” said Bill Pirrone, President at Rubicon Professional Services. “So I asked for $35,000 to do some geo-technical exploration. We unearthed column piers at 20 different locations in the building that affected the load bearing capability of the building structure. Then we determined that each column was sitting on shale capable of supporting 12,000 pounds per square foot. So we believed we could build data centers on the first, second, and third floor with some structural bracing to the building. We hired a structural engineer and pursued the job in that fashion.”

Rubicon was able to gain an additional 60,000 square feet of data center space at the site by altering the original design/build plan. As a result, the data center provider did not need to have an accessory building on the property and therefore was able to make a variance-free application to the township.

“Today, the data center provider has a flagship site on the East Coast, and Rubicon is proud to have contributed to the site selection and engineering design for that facility,” Pirrone said. “We worked with trusted engineering partners and structural engineers, and the customer gave us the wheel to drive their design and construction team. This project launched a very successful long-term relationship.”

The Benefits

Overall, the data center provider saved $2 million in site acquisition costs, expanded its marketable data center space, avoided the cost of an extra building and construction variances, and completed the project faster than anticipated – all within the original budget.

Over the years, Rubicon has continued to support the data center provider’s design/build needs as an owner’s representative and project manager. In addition to the flagship site, Rubicon has helped manage the design and construction of more than 20 additional data centers throughout the southern states and Midwest.

As an owner’s representative, Rubicon has also assisted in finding reputable engineering and structural engineering partners, as well as leasing clients for new data centers. Rubicon representatives have walked prospective tenants through the provider’s data centers and have explained the building’s amenities, how it was designed, as well as the operational and leasing requirements for each space.

“Rubicon has represented the data center provider in various markets to help it draw in prospective clients,” Pirrone said. “We also introduced them to companies and markets they weren’t aware of, such as the financial market. We’ve helped them establish some relationships that are still going strong today. Rubicon is proud to be an owner’s rep and due diligence partner to provide expert project management services as needed.”