Shipping giant FedEx held a grand opening for its new data center in Colorado earlier this week. Construction of the facility adjacent to the company’s Rocky Mountain Tech Center in Colorado Springs began in 2006 and Phase I was completed two years later.

Contractors have recently finished building out Phase II of the 140,000-sq-ft building and migration of core systems and applications to the new data center from the company’s old one in Memphis, Tennessee, has commenced. The company said it would take about three years to complete the migration.

FedEx Services senior VP of IT Kevin Humphries said the new facility was a milestone in the company’s strategy to leverage advanced technologies and would position it for future growth.

“We now have a technology model that, going forward, will improve productivity, enhance reliability and help reduce our impact on the environment,” he said.

FedEx has entered the new facility for LEED certification by the US Green Building Council. More than 75% of waste was diverted from the landfill during construction;about 11% of building products used for construction of the building were produced in the surrounding region and more than 14% of non-local materials contained recycled components.

The company expects the data center to be able to use 5,000 hours of free cooling during a normal year and its PUE to be 1.28.

Two separate utility substations feed power to the facility, backed up by about 2,000 UPS batteries and eight generators.