Tight supply-high demand has been a running theme in top US data center markets in recent years. Supply has been especially tight in Chicago, where real estate brokers say almost zero new data center capacity was delivered last year.

That’s about to change. Numerous new construction projects kicked off last year, and January saw news of several more that are in the works. ComEd, the utility that serves the area, announced in November a project to expand its Itasca substation so it can handle the massive load all the new data centers are about to add to the grid.  

If recent wholesale data center leases in the Chicago market are any indicator, the demand is there. Last year, Apple leased 14.5MW in Chicago from DuPont Fabros Technology (now part of Digital Realty Trust), and Two Sigma leased 2.2MW from CyrusOne, according to North American Data Centers. T5 Data Centers announced earlier this month a pre-lease by an S&P 500 client in the second phase of its Chicago build-out that’s currently underway.

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http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/colocation/data-center-construction-ramping-chicago-area