Investment firm GI Partners is planning a 72MW data center in Santa Clara, California.
First reported by CoStar and BizJournal, GI has filed for permits to demolish an existing office property and develop a new data center at 2805 Bowers Avenue.
According to filings with the California Energy Commission, the company aims to develop the Bowers Data Center (BDC) and Bowers Backup Generating Facility (BBGF).
Set on just over five acres, the data center would be a four-story building and substation, while the generating facility would consist of 32 2MW generators offering up to 72MW of capacity to provide backup power in the event of a grid outage.
Plans for a data center and generating plant were first filed with the energy commission by GI affiliated ‘DayZenLLC’ back in August 2022. A decision that the plans would not have a significant impact on the environment was made by the commission in November 2023.
The site currently features a 55,000-square-foot (5,110 sqm), two-story office building. Built in 1975, it is part of several buildings on an 11-acre site collectively known as the Walsh Bowers Technology Center.
According to an old Cushman & Wakefield sales brochure, the site currently features a small data center. An existing Silicon Valley Power (SVP) substation is located nearby.
GI acquired the property, along with the rest of the technology center, in early 2021 for a combined $79 million via its then-new Essential Tech + Science Fund. KeyPoint Credit Union sold 2805 Bowers to the investment firm for $37.5 million, while the other buildings were acquired from Equus Capital Partners.
The site had been credit union Keypoint’s headquarters.
GI, which founded and then divested Digital Realty, owns stakes in a number of data centers, and owns US operator LightEdge.
