Last Week's Real Estate Meets the Cloud: Data Centers Boom

"Some people are starting to design these complex systems," Jordan reveals during his panel, here addressing Aaron Duda, "oftentimes, the increase in human error potential outweighs any benefit gained by increasing the complexity."

“Clients shouldn't get hung up on the tier rating systems,” says Aaron, adding that data center designs need to mirror their fiber infrastructure to generate density and speed.

What’s the biggest thing to remember about working in the data center space? “Education,” Chris says, “and for each customer, this is extremely important.”

"Part of the problem is not having competitive supply on a regular basis to develop  market  gravity,” says Todd. And in order to keep this  gravity, “Chicago and Illinois must stay on pace with other Tier 1 markets." On a more celebratory note, he says Chicago Cut is the best place to grab dinner after a closing.

Eli and his company are bullish on Chicago. “We are  currently  a single site operator, so we’d better be bullish,” he says, adding that Chicago is a great  location  from which to connect to the rest of the country, since: “Connectivity is key.”

Lee has seen that a major trend is more 500 sub-kW deals. He says this is connected with the applications those companies are looking to run. “Historically we’ve been an enterprise player,” he says, “but we have seen more activity across the country.”

“With the vast proliferation of virtualization, cloud based implementations, and now software defined networking, the need to support higher density requirements in the data center is increasing," David says, adding, "the new model is targeted at maximizing vertical space within the cabinet, which will enable clients to use less space and drive down operational cost because of the smaller footprint."

Sean is also bullish in the market’s growth. He adds that “Incentive packages from the state are important. This is very valuable and is something that will help developers, operators and end users, and allow them to compete with other important states.”

“We feel that the Financial Industry in Chicago provides great opportunities for future growth and absorption in the market,” says Stephen. “Manufacturing, High Tech, and other Enterprise Class Tenants are here due to the connectivity to the coast, which make it a very unique market.” and this evidenced by a great tenant mix--excellent signs for the data center space moving forward.