The US real estate player responsible for spending US$466.3m in property acquisitions in the past year has acquired a 20,000 sq ft data centre in Clonshaugh in north Dublin from Ken Peterson's Hibernia Atlantic. Amazon has signed a 10-year lease to occupy the centre.
Digital Realty Trust also bought a further 2.6 acres adjacent to the building upon which it intends to build additional data centre facilities.

The company did not disclose how much it paid for the Dublin property, which before being acquired by Peterson four years ago was built by 360 Networks as part of a Ôé¼900m investment plan to lay a transatlantic network.

Digital Realty said that along with the acquisition of a second "vacant data centre in Dallas it spent a total of US$22.5m in the first quarter of 2006 on the two properties.

Digital Realty Trust describes itself as a company that owns, acquires, repositions and manages technology-related real estate. It owns 49 properties in 17 US and four European metropolitan areas that are considered to be key technology hubs, including Dublin.

The company's 49 properties consisting of 69 buildings contain applications and operations critical to the day-to-day operations of technology industry tenants and corporate enterprise data centre tenants. Comprising approximately 9.3 million net rentable square feet, including space held for redevelopment, Digital Realty Trust's property portfolio is located throughout the US and in Europe.