Spencer Building Carrier Hotel (SBCH) is expanding its data center in Vancouver, Canada.
The company, part of the Harbour Centre Complex, aims to add two new data halls on the Spencer Building’s sixth floor, offering a total of 5MW of power and 23,000 square feet of contiguous space – in addition to the existing 3MW being consumed by the existing data center business in Harbour Centre.
Data Hall 1, offering 2.5MW of power, is designed with flexible build-to-suit configurations with scalable power options of up to 40kW per cabinet. It is available now for concurrent build-out. Slated for 2027, the second hall will provide an additional 2.5MW of capacity.
“Today’s businesses, whether global enterprises, cloud providers, AI developers, carriers or from other business verticals, face a dual challenge of having to address escalating data demands and rising costs for data center services,” said Scott Despot, director of business development and sales at Spencer Building Carrier Hotel. “That’s why we’re thrilled to offer new, customizable data center options within the Spencer Building. With this, we’re redefining what it means to establish a footprint in Vancouver.”
First announced in January 2022, SBCH is part of the Polaris group of companies that owns the Harbour Centre. It was set up to repurpose the historic Spencer Building, originally built in 1926.
The 10MW, 43,000 sq ft (3,995 sqm) data center, at 515 West Hastings Street, previously served as a Spencer, Eaton, and Sears department store, as well as a downtown campus for Simon Fraser University.
As well as offering space to other data center operators, SBCH has launched Colo5 (not to be confused with the Colo5 company previously acquired by Cologix) and MMR5 to offer colocation and meet-me-room services. Colo5 launched last year with 100kW of capacity, offering 14 racks. Phase 2 is due to launch in Q1 2025.
TNW Corp (also/previously known as TNW Networks, Teliphone Navigata-Westel, and TéliPhone) previously used the Spencer building at 515 West Hastings Street as one of its data centers. According to TNW, the data center there was built in 2001 and offered 5,400 sq ft of space.
The building is also located adjacent to an existing carrier hotel. Opened in 1977, the Harbour Centre skyscraper at 555 West Hastings Street is one of the tallest buildings in the city. Designed by WZMH Architects, the building has 28 stories plus an observation deck 168 m (551 ft) above street level. Cologix, Cyxtera, Aptum, and eStruxture operate space in the building.