Datasphere Pays $80 Million for North Atlanta Data Center

Greenwich, Conn.-based Strategic Capital Fund Management, LLC recently announced the acquisition of a data center in Alpharetta, Ga., through its data center real estate investment platform, Strategic Datasphere, LLC. According to the statement of sale, the asset commanded a purchase price of $80 million and is fully leased to two investment-grade tenants.

Sunflower Bank, N.A. — a long-standing banking partner of Strategic Capital — provided financing for the transaction. Kristina Metzger, leader of CBRE Data Center Capital Markets, worked on behalf of the seller, Virginia-based Legacy Investing, LLC.

Located at 1650 Union Hill Rd., the Tier-IV-equivalent data center was built in 1999 to accommodate the operations of financial services company E-Trade, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. The property was subsequently renovated in 2008 and most recently in 2020. Now, it incorporates 165,000 square feet of state-of-the-art metro Atlanta office space and data center facilities.

Part of a popular data center corridor that serves both enterprise users and colocation operators, the data center offers 5.4 MW of 2N critical capacity that can be expanded to 8.1 MW at N+1. Information infrastructure investors in the greater Atlanta region benefit from low energy and operating costs; friendly state and local tax incentives; and a strong connectivity hub.

“We believe this is a rare opportunity to acquire a purpose-built data center with investment-grade, in-place cash flow, along with a strong value-add repositioning opportunity as a multi-tenant colocation facility in a Tier 1 data center market,” said Bryan Marsh, CEO of Strategic Datasphere, in a prepared statement.

Datasphere intends to compile a portfolio of more than $1.5 billion in data center real estate assets across the United States and Europe. Drawn to the high-quality property with future development potential, this marked the company’s first acquisition toward that goal.

Most notably, the purchase includes available land for another 140,000 square feet of development — a highly attractive perk to entering the country’s seventh-largest data center market at a time when demand for data computing, storage and networking capabilities continues to grow significantly