Data Center View
Posts
Data Center View - July 29, 2025 - Menlo Equities buys Atlanta-area data center for $65.5M

Data Center View - July 29, 2025 - Menlo Equities buys Atlanta-area data center for $65.5M

EdgeConneX to build over 1M SF campus. Atlas Capital proposes 1M SF project. Oakland University seeks developer for campus data center. 2025 mid-year data center report. Two new data center deals.

Matt H
July 29, 2025

Good morning. This is Data Center View, and we celebrate your wins.

→ We are here to serve the owners, brokers, and users who are interested in data center real estate. Do us a favor, and forward this email to your favorite data center pro. They can sign up here.

Now, let’s get to it.

NEWS ROUNDUP

ACQUISITION: Menlo Equities buys Atlanta-area data center for $65.5 million. Menlo Equities has acquired a 383K SF data center near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for $65.5 million. The seller, Digital Doug Davis, is an entity linked to Digital Realty Trust’s Dallas office. Originally built in 1992 and purchased by Digital Realty from Delta Air Lines in 2011 for $63 million, the 33-year-old facility was acquired by Menlo at $171 per square foot—a notable discount compared to the $300/SF average in Georgia and $465/SF nationally, according to Avison Young data. Nick Steen, associate at Avison Young, said the acquisition aligns with a growing trend of upgrading older data centers to meet surging demand for power in Georgia, where Georgia Power is reportedly handling 8 gigawatts of backlogged data center demand. During an April earnings call, Greg Wright, Chief Investment Officer of Digital Realty, highlighted Atlanta and Charlotte as critical markets, citing less than 1% vacancy, low-cost power, and proximity to urban centers. The firm’s Fort Gillem and Charlotte campuses are expected to support over 600 megawatts of future capacity.

DEVELOPMENT: EdgeConneX to build over 1 million SF of data center space in Ohio. EdgeConneX is entering the Ohio market with plans to develop over 1.2 million square feet of data center space across a massive site in New Albany, just outside Columbus. The company recently acquired 270 acres of land and a 524,525-square-foot warehouse for $137.2 million. The project will unfold in multiple phases:

Phase I: Convert the existing warehouse into a data center, with completion targeted for April 2026.
Phase II: Construct a new two-story, 700,000-square-foot data center and a separate 80,000-square-foot energy center with gas-fired generators. Completion is scheduled for Q3 2027.

In total, EdgeConneX aims to deliver 1,225,000 square feet of hyperscale-grade infrastructure across the site. To support this buildout, EdgeConneX is also pursuing a 120MW natural gas power plant under its PowerConneX affiliate. The plant, located on 48.6 acres near Ohio 161 and Mink Street in the New Albany International Business Park, is expected to begin construction in Q4 2025 and come online by Q1 2026.

DEVELOPMENT: Atlas Capital proposes 1 million SF data center in Connecticut. Atlas Capital Group has submitted a conceptual proposal to build a two-story, 1 million square-foot data center in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The facility would feature over 900,000 square feet for data processing and a 127,000-square-foot substation. The proposed development is expected to create 40 permanent jobs. While Atlas Capital is leading the proposal, the land is owned by River Bend Development CT, a Bloomfield-based LLC. Atlas primarily manages residential and mixed-use properties in New York and California, making this one of its few ventures into the data center space.

DEVELOPMENT: Oakland University seeks developer for campus data center. Oakland University (OU) in Rochester, Michigan, has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new colocation Edge data center on its campus, targeting development on a five-acre site currently used as a parking lot. The site lies adjacent to a DTE Energy substation, which assessments indicate could provide up to 26MW of available power—a key enabler for the project. “We have that asset built into our campus,” said Steven Mackey, OU’s vice president for finance and administration. “The new data center would bring potential for smart campus technology, artificial intelligence research, experimental and digital learning, jobs for students, and the local economy.” OU’s RFP describes the facility as a sub-30MW colocation Edge data center serving a variety of tenants, not anchored by OU itself. The university plans to retain land ownership while transferring all design, build, finance, operations, and maintenance responsibilities to a third-party project team, including the sourcing of tenants.

In addition to the colocation space, the data center must include: