Supply Pipeline Positions Portland for Dramatic Data Center Growth

June 4, 2020

The story of Portland as a data center market will be defined in the next several years. With a historic volume of supply in the pipeline, the Hillsboro cluster is poised for dramatic growth. Developers are embracing the thesis that Portland is the hot emerging market for low-cost data center development in the Pacific Northwest.

Rich Miller

A key differentiator for Portland is the Hillsboro cluster’s direct access to seven subsea telecommunications cables, which offer high-capacity connectivity to China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Guam, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, and American Samoa. (Photo credit: Manuela Durson/Shutterstock Pacific coast, Oregon) — A key differentiator for Portland is the
Hillsboro cluster’s direct access to seven subsea telecommunications cables, which offer high-capacity connectivity to China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Guam, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, and American Samoa. (Photo credit: Manuela Durson/Shutterstock Pacific coast, Oregon)

A new special report from Data Center Frontier explores the evolution of the Portland, Oregon data center market. This third entry in the special report series highlights Portland data center supply trends. The region is on the cusp of major potential data center development growth.

Get the full report.

The story of Portland as a data center market will be defined in the next several years. With a historic volume of supply in the pipeline, the Hillsboro cluster is poised for dramatic growth.

Developers are embracing the thesis that Portland is the hot emerging market for low-cost data center development in the Pacific Northwest.

Data center companies have announced plans for up to 275 MWs of new capacity, representing a potential 1.33 million SF of additional space. Meanwhile, there were 2.3 MWs of absorption in 4Q of 2019, with a 10.6 percent vacancy rate.

NTT Global Data Centers Americas (formerly RagingWire Data Centers)
NTT Global Data Centers Americas (formerly RagingWire) has just announced a 47-acre campus that will house up to 144 MWs of critical IT load, and 1 million SF of data center space. The first of five buildings is scheduled to open in the summer of 2020. The data centers on the Hillsboro campus will be designed with customizable high-density vaults in order to support both single-user and colocation requirements of hyperscale cloud and enterprise clients. Power and cooling systems will offer a 100% availability SLA by leveraging a “4 to make 3 design” to provide N+1 redundancy at the rack level. Renewable energy packages will be available as well.

Digital Realty kicks off development in Hillsboro
Digital Realty acquired its development site in Hillsboro as part of its purchase of DuPont Fabros in 2017, and is under construction on its first building, which uses the company’s large-footprint designs and is positioned to come to the market in 2020. In 4Q 2019 the company executed an agreement with PGE that will supply 120,000 MWH of solar and wind energy to Digital Realty’s Portland campus. Data center operators continue to focus on renewable energy and ensuring their fuel mix is as environmentally friendly as possible for the future.

QTS data center development underway
QTS is actively developing its latest data center on its 92-acre Hillsboro campus, which the company says will support five data center buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet of space and 250 megawatts of power capacity. The company has pre-leased the entire 4.5 MW first phase of its initial 158,000 SF building, which will span 27 MWs of commissioned power.

Stack Infrastructure planning expansion
Stack Infrastructure is the largest current provider in Portland, and recently announced plans for additional growth in the area. The company plans to build a new 60 MW data center on the remaining 35 acres of land in its Hillsboro footprint. The new data center will be the largest in the Portland market and will provide ample capacity. Stack tenant Opus Interactive also announced a 400 kW expansion of their lease.

EdgeConneX under construction
Denver based EdgeConneX is also expanding in the Portland market. The company’s Hillsboro facility is located in a traditional office park, and EdgeConneX has acquired an adjacent building and will combine the two buildings through a shared electrical yard. The expanded site should be available in 2020.

Flexential plans large new data center
Flexential plans to construct a 300,000 SF facility (its largest to date) in Hillsboro on 20 acres of land near the company’s existing data centers. The company has not set a date to start construction.

Market chatter suggests that several of these providers have likely lined up anchor tenants, a thesis supported by the volume of construction activity, and past practice by these developers, who seek to closely match capital expenditures with tenant commitments.

The amount of pre-leasing will be a factor in the growth and success of the Portland market. If developers succeed in closely matching capacity to rising demand, the region is poised for long-term growth and a higher profile as a data center destination.

Explore the Portland data market further through Data Center Frontier’s new special report series. The last article in the series will explore Portland’s business environment, including info on connectivity, power, economic development and incentives, and more. The first two articles in the series can be found below:

And see the full report,“2020 Data Center Market Overview Portland.”

About the Author

Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.