Element Critical, a leading data center and colocation provider, is expanding its facilities with the acquisition of two enterprise data centers. The provider acquired data centers encompassing 195,000 square feet of space in Wood Dale, Illinois, 17 miles west of downtown Chicago and two miles from O’Hare International airport.
With the latest expansion, Element Critical has four data centers in three geographically dispersed markets to its credit. These data centers comprise nearly 500,000 square feet of data center space, serving some of the world’s largest companies and government agencies, including several Fortune 100 businesses. According to Ken Parent, Element Critical’s CEO, Chicago is the natural next step in their expansion strategy. “Element Critical is building a world-class data center platform and Chicago is the natural next step in our national expansion strategy,” said Ken Parent.
The latest acquisition features 111,000 square feet of raised floor and up to 15 megawatts of available power capacity. The facilities are capable of serving large and midsize enterprise customers across a wide range of businesses verticals, providing solutions to support virtually any client requirement. The facilities are tied directly to existing telecommunications and fiber carriers, including fiber routes to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and East Cermak.
Apart from this, the provider has plans to invest $40 million in expanding and enhancing facilities located in Wood Dale. “We are investing more than $40 million to develop and enhance the Wood Dale facilities to immediately provide customers with strategic, customized, and flexible colocation solutions,” said Parent.
Element Critical now owns and operates highly secure data centers in Silicon Valley, Chicago, and Northern Virginia. The provider boasts of providing Tier III hybrid IT ready facilities, which are carrier-neutral, network-rich, concurrently maintainable and available in a variety of deployment sizes and densities. As part of its expansion, the company intends to continue to acquire properties in key primary and secondary markets in the U.S.