US commercial bank M&T, which services multiple northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, has agreed to buy a data center in New York State from the global financial services company HSBC. The bank is planning to make the building its primary data center and convert is current data center into office space.

M&T president Mark Czarnecki said in a statement, the project would help boost economic development in the surrounding region. "At M&T Bank, we're pleased to be working with HSBC on this project to keep the data center generating new investment and jobs in the community."

The 59,280-sq-ft building is located in the Town of Amherst, which is also the location of M&T's current data center. The company said it would invest more than US$105m into upgrades at both buildings over the next 10 years if the deal goes through.

Both companies are waiting for a number of approvals from local authorities. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

M&T currently employs more than 1,300 people at two operations centers and nine branch locations in Amherst.

"This new investment gives us the room we need to expand our technology infrastructure--and the room we need to add more new jobs,"Czarnecki said.

As DatacenterDynamics reported in March 2009, HSBC has been planning to move its primary US data centers out of New York State to Illinois. In addition to the Amherst facility, the company also had a data center in Buffalo, New York.

Also in 2009, HSBC secured an approval to build a data center in York, UK. The company dropped the £300m project later that year.