H5 has acquired two data centers outside Buffalo, New York, from former Internet giant Yahoo!.
The company also looks at have acquired two other Yahoo!-owned sites in Nebraska and Washington. The acquired data centers add around 1 million sq ft (92,900 sqm) of data center space to H5's portfolio.
Local press including WBFO and BizJournal report H5 has acquired Yahoo!’s two data center properties in Lockport for $49 million in a sale-leaseback deal.
An affiliate of H5 reportedly acquired the two sites, at 5319 Enterprise Drive, in a deal that closed at the end of December.
Some 15 Yahoo! staff are said to have transferred to H5, while around 140 Yahoo! staff will remain on-site for at least five more years, according to the Town of Lockport economic development agency.
Yahoo first came to Lockport back in 2009, building a $150 million passively air-cooled data center – known as the chicken-coop design – on 30 acres it acquired. The site has since been expanded repeatedly, with some ten buildings across two sites totaling 43 acres.
As part of the deal, H5 is foregoing tax breaks and incentives previously approved for Yahoo!.
Tom Sy of the Town of Lockport economic development agency, said: “This entity, H5 Data Centers, purchased all of Yahoo's land and buildings, i.e. real estate. It didn't do anything with the operations of Yahoo! itself. As a part of that arrangement, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, etc., signed a long-term lease. So, it's really more of a sale-leaseback kind of arrangement.”
The H5 website now lists two facilities in Buffalo – located at 5319 Enterprise Drive in Lockport. The two data centers total 409,200 sq ft (38,016 sqm) on 43 acres. The site features two on-site substations offering up to 44MW. Six carriers connect to the campus.
According to the Wayback Machine, the two Buffalo sites were added to H5’s website after December 18.
Update: An eagle-eye DCD reader noticed that H5 has also added two other Yahoo! data center sites to its website.
Also added at the turn of the year, H5 now lists two further data centers in Quincy, Washington, and one in Omaha, Nebraska, as available for colocation.
Located at 1500 M Street NE (and 1010 Yahoo Way), close to H5's existing Quincy facility, the two new data centers total 452,300 sq ft (42,020 sqm) across multiple buildings on 63 acres. The two on-site substations total 82MW. Both sites were previously operated by Yahoo!, which has had a presence in the area since 2007 and expanded several times. They feature the company's patented chicken-coop design.
H5 also lists a former Yahoo! facility in Omaha. Located at 10917 Harry Watanabe Parkway in La Vista, the site totals 234,500 sq ft (21,785 sqm) in a single building on 32 acres. Unlike the Quincy and Lockport sites, this 17.3MW property features a flat roof design. Yahoo! acquired the shell around 2008 for conversion into a data center; opened in 2010, it was expanded in 2015.
DCD has reached out to H5 and Yahoo! for more information.
Yahoo exited a data center in Wenatchee, Washington, in 2023. Princeton Digital Group acquired a Yahoo-owned data center in Singapore in August.
2022 saw Yahoo select AWS as its preferred public cloud provider for its advertising technology business, Yahoo Ad Tech.
Founded in 1994 and once one of the most popular websites in the world, Yahoo has had a storied history.
Verizon acquired Yahoo! In 2017 and merged it with its Verizon Digital Media Services business to form Oath Inc. and later, Verizon Media. Funds managed by Apollo Global Management Inc. acquired Verizon Media in early 2021 and brought back the Yahoo! name, if not the success of the company's early days.
H5 operates more than 4 million sq ft (371,610 sqm) of data center space across 20 US markets.
H5 recently formed a new data center joint venture with Canadian investment firm Novacap. Novacap this week announced the close of its first data center fund, with investments including data center firm Hyscale - described as a joint venture with H5.
Given the H5 affiliate that acquired the Lockport site was Hyscale Data Centers Lockport LLC, it is possible this and the other Yahoo! sites were made through this new joint venture.
DCD has reached out to Novacap for more information.
