Phoenix, which has been one of the nation’s strongest-performing data center markets for the past many years, continues to shine. Thanks to our booming population, a mix of cloud, social media and technology companies are all vying for space here. This keeps demand always ahead of supply, even within the Valley’s significant inventory of Class A data center product.
This ongoing demand has ranked Phoenix second in the U.S. for data center demand, third in the U.S. for data center job growth and fourth in the U.S. for data center construction activity, according to JLL’s recently released Data Center Outlook report.
Major industry players like Align, NTT, QTS, Compass, CyrusOne, Stream, Iron Mountain and EdgeCore are filling space as quickly as it completes, and new demand continues to emerge from not only the entities noted above but also the financial services, healthcare and software sectors.
With this steady influx of large-scale, multi-site requirements, colocation developers and operators are continuing to expand their footprints with secondary locations throughout Metro Phoenix. As of the start of 2022, the Valley had a total inventory of just over 5.1 million square feet (472 megawatts) of data center space. Over the next several years, planned construction to the tune of almost 5.8 million square feet (883 megawatts) will more than double that. Look for most of this growth to be in the East Mesa data center cluster and the Glendale-Goodyear area.
For data center users, the message is clear: Be swift with deal execution, because there are likely multiple users pursuing the same inventory. For buyers, it is a game of go big or go home. Because if you build it, they will come.
Mark Bauer is a managing director with JLL in Phoenix and co-leader with its Data Center Solutions group who has two decades of experience in the data center and colocation industry.
Photo courtesy of JLL
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