Phoenix Suburbs Poised for Major Data Center Expansion

Last week in our special report series on the Phoenix data center market, we looked at some of the key trends in the market. This week, we’ll take a look at how data centers are expanding beyond the city proper and into the Phoenix suburbs.

Going forward, the vast majority of data center investment in Phoenix will be built in the suburbs of Mesa to the East and Goodyear to the West. The two towns are each developing “data center districts” with targeted incentives and opportunity zones.

The intentional approach of local economic development officials has paid big dividends. There is currently 732 MW of capacity planned for Mesa, while 461 MW is planned in Goodyear. Here’s a closer look at these two submarkets.

MESA, ARIZONA

The city of Mesa is home to an Apple data center in a large facility previously owned by Apple supplier GT Advanced Technologies. Last year EdgeCore opened the doors on a 178,000 SF two-story data center offering 32 MWs in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, where the company has land to support up to seven data center buildings.

In addition to robust power infrastructure, the Elliot Road Technology Corridor has Foreign Trade Zone status, and the city of Mesa has created a Planned Area Development Overlay Zone that “reduces entitlement risk and expedites the development process.” The area also offers a recycled water loop.

These steps have laid the groundwork for a robust data center district. Here’s an overview of the projects in the pipeline:

• NTT Global Data Centers Americas has broken ground on a 240MW, 102-acre campus in Mesa, which can support up to seven planned data centers. The company expects to complete an electrical substation in the spring of 2021, with the first 36MW building to follow in early 2022.
• Digital Realty is developing a 56-acre site in Mesa where it has filed plans to construct five data center buildings, ranging from 232,000 SF to as large as 1.2 million SF. The site, which will also include a substation, was acquired through its 2018 purchase of DuPont Fabros Technology.
• CyrusOne has purchased a 68-acre land site in Mesa to construct their second Phoenix data center campus. The campus is designed to accommodate up to five buildings and 198 MW of commissioned power.
• EdgeConneX has purchased 120 acres of land and has filed plans to build a 30 MW data center.
• Google plans to invest at least $1 billion to create a data center campus on 187 acres in the Elliot corridor. The company has until 2025 to begin development, and plans to build at least 750,000 SF of server farms.

Download the full report, 2021 Data Center Market Overview Phoenix, courtesy of NTT, for a full list of providers in the Phoenix market.

GOODYEAR, Arizona

A similar data center district is poised to emerge to the West of Phoenix in Goodyear, which is building momentum around a major cloud computing project.

• The largest projects in Goodyear are several data centers for Microsoft, which has acquired 420 acres of land to support two data centers, as well as 150 acres in nearby El Mirage. All three locations will be multi-phase developments.
• Stream says the first of five buildings planned for its Goodyear Campus went live in August, along with an agreement with Cox Business that will allow tenants to interconnect their Stream services with other data centers.
• Compass is marketing up to 242 MWs of data center capacity on its 190-acre campus in Goodyear, which includes an on-site 230kV substation.
• STACK Infrastructure has acquired 79 acres of land for a data center campus in Avondale, which is immediately adjacent to Goodyear, which can support as much as 150 megawatts of capacity and 1 million SF of build-out.
• Vantage Data Centers has bought a 50-acre site in Goodyear, which will be home to three data centers spanning 1 million SF and 160 MWs of critical load.
• In July 2020 Amazon Web Services bought 91 acres of land in the growing data center cluster in Goodyear.

In our next article, we’ll take a closer look at the business environment that’s helping Phoenix to become a destination for providers from other markets. Download the full report, 2021 Data Center Market Overview Phoenix, courtesy of NTT, to learn more about the Phoenix market.