Amazon has acquired two data centers outside Worcester in Massachusetts.
Citing Worcester District Registry of Deeds, the Worcester Business Journal this week reported that Amazon Data Services Inc. has purchased two properties in Worcester County, in Grafton and Westborough, from an affiliate of financial services firm State Street Corp. for a total of $26.7 million.
In Westborough, Amazon bought 600 and 800 Friberg Parkway for $11.6 million. The building at 600 Friberg, a State Street data center, spans around 99,150 square feet (9,200 sqm). 800 Friberg is currently greenfield land. The two lots are a combined 19 acres.
The 11-acre lot at 600 Friberg was last sold for $6.5 million in 1992, according to the Westborough Assessor’s Office.
In Grafton, Amazon bought a 155,000-square-foot (14,400 sqm) flex building on a 1.8-acre lot at 8 Centennial Drive for $15.1 million. The property is part of CenTech Park, a 121-acre technology park located in Grafton and Shrewsbury.
State Street’s latest Form 10-K filing with the SEC also lists this site as a data center, with an old Energy Star Certificate page on GBIG.org suggesting it was built in 1980.
The two properties made up State Street’s entire owned-data center portfolio. The company is a known AWS and Azure customer.
Amazon didn’t reply to WBJ’s request for comment on the acquisition. It would be highly unusual for the cloud company to engage in any sort of sale-leaseback deal or even refurbish a legacy facility; a complete demolition and rebuild of both sites would be most likely.
AWS doesn't have a cloud region in Massachusetts - the nearest would either be Virginia to the south or across the Canadian border in Montreal to the north - but it does operate both a Local Zone and CloudFront location in Boston.
Amazon already has a sizeable non-data center presence in Westborough. The company bought a 93-acre lot with an industrial office park for $65 million last year; is in the process of expanding its Amazon Robotics’ manufacturing facility at 50 Otis Street; and is developing a fulfillment center in the area.
Update: The Telegram & Gazette reports State Street Corp. had owned the property in Grafton since 2001 and acquired the properties in Westborough in 1992.
Assistant Town Manager Kristen Las said that Amazon has not made the town of Shrewsbury aware of any of Amazon's development plans for the property in Grafton.
In Westborough, the company has not yet disclosed to the town what its development plans are for the properties, according to the Community Development Director Fred Lonardo.
