BOLSTERING ITS TEXAS FOOTPRINT

Colocation and data center provider Element Critical, has just announced it plans to expand the Houston One data center, targeting the demands of retail colocation and wholesale data center customers in the Texas market.

The Houston One facility was acquired by Element Critical from Skybox in March which featured a load capacity of 26MW, housing a 98,000 square foot data center with up to 40,000 square feet of expansion space.

With a groundbreaking ceremony to start with, the expansion project has now commenced with Executive Construction Inc. as the general contractor. The first construction phase of the Houston One expansion will extend the original building’s 33,000 square feet core and shell space to accommodate two new 5MW data halls.

“Businesses have experienced a seismic shift toward digital advancement and require the always-on availability and proven operational expertise that our purpose-built Houston facility provides,” said Ken Parent, CEO of Element Critical.

“Executive Construction’s impressive portfolio of over 150 mission-critical projects and the successful completion of our Chicagoland data center expansion makes them a great partner for our first development collaboration in Texas,” said Matt O’Hare, Director of Design and Construction Operations.

According to Element Critical, each new data hall will provision customizable space and the facility is expected to further enable power customization through the installation of a dedicated power transformer fit-out for customers to choose their energy supply option.

The new Houston One data center expansion will also augment the operations of Element Critical’s Austin One data center, another Texas facility that the company acquired few weeks ago. The 62,000 square foot Austin data center is designed to support 7MW of IT load and sited on a 7-acre campus which is located in the northern part of Austin.

The expansion of Houston One is projected for completion in Q2 2022 which will bring the facility’s total power capacity to 32MW.