Data center provider Expedient has complete phase one of its third data center in Cleveland, Ohio. The addition to its estate contributes 6,500 square feet (650 sq m) of raised floor to the market in a 14,000 square foot facility.

Pittsburgh-based Expedient now runs 10 data centers in six US markets spanning the Northeast, Middle Atlantic and Midwest. The service provider is pursuing an aggressive strategy to address the local small and medium sized business market, according to sources.

In January Datacenter Dynamics reported Expedient Data Centers had a $2.8 million construction permit for a data center facility in Memphis, Tennessee. Interior renovations will cost an estimated $6 million.

The new Cleveland data center adds an Ohio portfolio of computer services facilities that includes a presence in the Columbus metro, with another one currently under construction. There are other SME (small and medium enterprise) sized data centers in Boston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Memphis.

Believe-land?

Shawn McGorry, Expedient’s president and COO, is on record for pursuing a strategy of creating a ‘network of interconnected data centers’ with ‘an additional geographically diverse option for our current client base, as well as a local market solution’. Expedient’s focus is the small and medium sized business, which is typically like to be a customer of secondary, or tier-two, data center, according to McGorry.

As more applications and services are outsourced to the web, data centers are being built closer to end users, commented Gillis Cashman, managing partner at private equity data center investor M/C Partners. “In smaller markets, people have built their own data centers,” Cashman said.