Data center operator Latisys has kicked off the build-out of additional data center floor at its Oak Brook, Illinois (Chicago area), data center, as well as completion of an expansion project at its site in Ashburn, Virginia.

In the Chicago market, Latisys is planning to bring an additional 10,000 sq ft of data center space and 1.35MW of power at its CHI2 data center, a 50,000 sq ft facility adjacent to its CHI1 building. The company expects to finish the build-out by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

This site acts as a hub for Latisys’ Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform. Supporting infrastructure for the cloud service also lives in California and Virginia data centers, as well as a disaster-recovery site in Denver.

Scott Moerman, regional sales director for Latisys in Chicago, said the Chicago region was one of the premium transportation and connectivity hubs in the US. As such, it has seen continuous growth in demand for IT infrastructure services.

“This investment helps ensure that the Latisys data center campus, managed hosting and cloud platform continue to lead the way for businesses for whom change is constant and a truly agile IT infrastructure partner is an imperative,” he said.

In Ashburn, Latisys has added 22,000 sq ft of data center space in a completely new data center called DC05 (it serves the Washington, D.C., market). The facility’s power capacity is 4.4MW.

The Ashburn site also supports Latisys’ cloud service, in addition to its traditional colocation, managed hosting and managed services offerings.

Both projects are part of the massive data center expansion program Latisys announced in March. The plan consisted of adding a total of 72,000 sq ft of space across its data centers in Ashburn, Chicago, Denver and Southern California.