Principal Asset Management has acquired Switch Datacenters' AMS2 facility in Woerden, near Amsterdam, on behalf of its €297M Principal European Data Centre Fund I.
As part of the transaction, Switch Datacenters will retain complete operational control of the site, customer contracts and the brand name under a new 20-year lease.
Financial terms for the deal, which only includes the real estate and infrastructure assets, weren’t disclosed.
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"AMS2 benefits from a high-quality location, a long-term tenant relationship, and a clear value- enhancement opportunity through the planned refurbishment program," Paul Lewis, managing director, European data centers at Principal Asset Management, said in a statement.
The AMS2 data center spans 5,500 square meters of lettable floor space and has been fully leased to Switch Datacenters since 2014.
Initially built to serve as a banking data center and callback facility, Switch Datacenters took over operations and converted the site into a colocation facility the same year.
The operator is undertaking a large-scale refurbishment and expansion of AMS2 to increase its capacity to 4.2 megawatts, with the potential to expand to an additional 14 MW in the medium term.
Targeting high-density workloads, once the upgrade is complete, the facility will utilize liquid direct‑to‑chip and hybrid air‑cooling technology, alongside closed‑loop cooling.
Additional plans for redevelopment include a heat-reuse solution that will be able to be fed into district heating networks and steps to limit noise and improve biodiversity in the area.
The transaction isn't the first time the companies have worked together. In 2023, Principal AM, the global investment arm of Principal Financial Group, acquired an Amsterdam logistics facility and converted it into a 42 MW data center for Switch.
AMS2 is the seventh data center Principal Asset Management has acquired for its European Data Center Fund I. The fund initially closed in February 2022, surpassing its target and reaching €155M before reaching its final close in October 2023 with a total of 14 investors.
The fund targets data center assets with a manage-to-core strategy, and its portfolio spans sites in Barcelona, Dublin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and the UK.
Switch Datacenters is a Dutch developer and operator of data centers. Founded in 2009, it operates three sites, with five more under development in the Netherlands and one being developed in Warsaw, Poland.
The majority of the data center sites are in neighbouring municipalities to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, such as Alphen aan den Rijn, Maasdijk and Schiphol-Rijk.
The data center operator and developer is set to develop a trio of high-power-density data centers around Amsterdam, including AMS5 in Diemen, AMS6 in De Kwakel, and AMS7 in Haarlemmerliede, which has met with a mix of local responses as protests against data centers in the Netherlands continue.
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