by Brianna Crandall — August 13, 2014—Facilities owners and managers in the Houston area who are seeking data center space may be interested in a recent announcement from Skybox Datacenters, a Dallas-based data center developer. The company has commenced construction on Skybox Houston One, an 86,960-square-foot purpose-built data center initially offering four private 10,000-square-foot data halls and able to expand to 12 data halls within its 20-acre campus.
The facility is located in the fast-growing Energy Corridor of Houston, Texas, and completion is expected in November of 2014. Skybox, a joint venture between Rugen Street Capital and Bandera Ventures, notes that the Energy Corridor is home to many of the top oil and gas and energy companies and has seen significant growth in recent years.
“Houston has become a very dynamic data center market over the past 2-3 years. A meaningful contributor to the market has been major oil and gas firms and their need for fast, low-latency access to geoseismic data,” says Bryan Loewen, global data center practice leader at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. “Additionally, we expect the requirements for local data center product to only increase as the reliance and dependence on technology increases for all companies in the greater Houston market.”
Due to its Katy location, Skybox Houston One will benefit from access to Houston’s Interstate 10 fiber-optic backbone, making it ideal for users located in both the Energy Corridor and Galleria, as well as Downtown.
“We welcomed the opportunity to help Skybox locate in Katy because there is a huge customer base awaiting their services,” said Lance LaCour, president and CEO of the Katy Area Economic Development Council. “Skybox will be able to regularly interact with more than 500 energy-related businesses employing more than 20,000 people.”
Skybox Houston One offers users abundant available power, a robust building envelope, and an extremely secure site situated well above the Houston 500-year flood zone. The facility is designed to a LEED Silver standard and the FM I-150 roof system with concrete roof deck is designed to resist 190 mph hurricane-grade winds.
Skybox Houston One boasts 12.5 megawatts of critical load and is powered by a loop-fed, 300-megawatt electric utility substation immediately adjacent to the site. Reportedly for the first time in the Houston colocation data center market, Skybox is providing unmatched power utility reliability by equipping users with both dual-feed A/B utility power feeds in robust underground concrete-encased duct banks and Premium Rollover Service in the power utility equipment configuration.
The facility will also introduce its proprietary DoubleDense technology, specifically created for industry-unique requirements of users engaged in high-density computing.
