While the country's wholesale data center market is generally in a healthy state, there is an oversupply of turn-key space across the US, according to the most recent market update from the Toronto-based commercial real estate firm Avison Young.

Turn-key is one type of product wholesale data center providers usually offer. It implies fully kitted-out data center facilities, ready to accept clients' IT gear, as opposed to the powered-shell product, where the tenant has to build out a building that only has some electrical infrastructure in place.

There is currently about 2m sq ft of turn-key data center space available across the US, the report's authors wrote.

The biggest chunk of this capacity, in terms of power, is in the Piscataway, New Jersey, market, where more than 27MW of turn-key capacity is up for grabs. Following Piscataway are Atlanta, Georgia, with 21MW of turn-key mission-critical power is available, and Dallas, Texas, with 19.5MW.

Of the markets Avison Young highlighted in the report, the least turn-key capacity is available in Santa Clara, California: 5.53MW. Other relatively low-capacity markets include Houston, Texas, and Los Angeles, California.

A lot of vacant plug-and-play data center space is also available in Seattle, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, and Ashburn, Virginia. Availability in these markets ranges from about 10MW in Chicago to 14MW in Ashburn.

Absorption of wholesale data center space this year in general has been much stronger than in 2012, the real-estate firm said. A total of about 400,000 sq ft of available space has been absorpbed since the beginning of November 2012.

Most of this success, however, belongs to Digital Realty Trust, the country's largest wholesale provider and one of the largest providers globally.

“Wholesale operators other than Digital Realty Trust did not have a memorable first quarter,” the report's authors wrote. Digital's largest transaction during the quarter was a 6MW lease at a Northern Virginia data center by the social-networking company LinkedIn.

Digital also leased 3MW to an unnamed customer at a Chicago facility.

Wholesale pricing is currently low, according to Avison Young, but the firm expects “an uptick in most markets.” Large transactions recently completed were in the US$110-$115-per-kW range.

Companies whose powered-shell leases are about to expire will see their renewal rates increase significantly. Many tenants that signed such leases in 1999 and 2000 will see their contracts run out over the next two years.