In one of the biggest commercial real estate deals of the year, QTS Data Centers acquired 206.08 acres of land in Avondale for $246,866,895, according to Vizzda. The sellers were Terry Klinger and Grand View Dairy. The sale breaks down to $1,198,014.82 per acre.
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The land is part of the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus and is located at the southwest corner of Avondale Boulevard and Lower Buckeye Road in Avondale.
QTS has plans to build a massive data center on the land and other potential projects, but the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus has the potential to also include other commercial development and retail.
Metro Phoenix prevails as the second-largest data center market in the nation, according to JLL’s H2 2023 North American Data Center Report.
“The availability of power and land remain primary factors in data center market success, and Phoenix fares extremely well in both of these categories,” said Mark Bauer, Senior Managing Director and Data Center Solutions Group Co-Leader, JLL. “That has kept local demand on a steady uptick, creating exponential absorption and positioning Phoenix top-of-mind for a wide spectrum of users as they continue to search for capacity.”
Bolstered by its availability and affordability of power, and its available land for new development, the market during the second half of 2023 completed leases for 748MW of new data center capacity and has 2.8 million square feet (703MW) of capacity under construction. This ranks second only to national data center leader Northern Virginia, with 1.6GW of transactions completed during the same time period and more than 13 million square feet (1,339MW) under construction.
“Data centers require thousands of skilled workers to design, construct and operate,” QTS said in a statement. “We choose markets like Phoenix because of access to a highly skilled and motivated workforce.”
