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Two data center companies have closed on 100 acres across the West Valley for new facilities.
California-based Prime Data Centers bought 66 acres in Avondale with plans to build a new $2 billion campus across the south part of Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus. It paid $28.9 million, or about $438,000 per acre, for the site in April, according to real estate database Vizzda.
The facility could see 1.3 million square feet across five data center buildings with 210 megawatts of power. The first data center is expected to be completed by Q3 2025 and total 260,400 square feet with 42 megawatts of capacity.
The campus will be designed to support hyperscale service providers, large internet brands, global technology companies and Fortune 500 enterprise. Prime Data said dark fiber access from the campus will provide customers with low-latency connectivity to local carrier-hotel meet-me rooms and internet exchange points.
Chris Sumter, EVP of acquisitions at Prime Data, said state tax incentives, power costs that are 16 to 18% below national averages and low risk of natural disasters is why Phoenix has become a leader in data center growth.
“Phoenix presents an incredible growth opportunity for Prime as a top-five, North American data center market with increasing demand from cloud and enterprise data center buyers,” Sumter said in a statement. “This project will further Prime’s commitment to sustainability and technology advancement through efficient enablement of higher power densities and recycled water.”
The data center campus will be built adjacent to Salt River Project's planned Sierra Estrella battery storage project, which is being developed in partnership with Houston-based Plus Power LLC. The Sierra Estrella project will be the largest standalone battery facility in the state and be able to store up to 250 megawatts once built.
The site is located along Avondale Boulevard south of Lower Buckeye Road. In January, Avondale City Council gave its approval to rezone 78 acres of the site and amend its general plan to make way for a tech campus with mostly data center space.
Council approved rezoning the site more than a year after the city raised concerns over noise and water use of a data center campus on the previous application for Hermosa Ranch, which included 300 acres.
A developer representative, Bergin, Frakes, Smalley + Oberholtzer PLLC, said at a neighborhood meeting last summer that the data centers will use a closed-loop water system and after an initial use of 100,000 gallons that its daily demand would be far less. It also said the campus would bring 30 to 50 full-time jobs.
Gensler is listed as the architect, CVL Consultants is listed as the civil engineer and Norris Design is in charge of planning and landscape. The property owners of the overall technology park are listed as several entities that are connected to Nick Vanderwey and Terry Klinger.
Glendale site
Another growing data center company, Vantage Data Centers, could also be expanding in Glendale following the completion of its new facility in Goodyear.
Vantage acquired nearly 34 acres from Phoenix-based industrial developer Merit Partners for $50 million in March, or about $1.5 million per acre, according to Vizzda. The site is located at the southwest corner of the Loop 303 and Bethany Home Road in Merit's master-planned industrial center called Camelback 303.
The property is part of an overall 614-acre site that Merit owned and had planned to develop into a $1.5 billion logistics park, the Business Journal previously reported. Last year, QTS Realty Trust bought 400 acres of Camelback 303 from Merit for a potential expansion.
Vantage did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the land purchase and its plans to develop.
In the past year, Vantage started construction on the second phase of its data center facility in Goodyear across 50 acres near the Phoenix Goodyear Airport. The company said it was spending more than $1.5 billion on the campus.
The Phoenix metro has struggled to keep up with the demand for data centers, and it led the nation in data center construction and leasing in 2022.
