US wholesale data center developer and landlord T5 Data Centers’ next build will be in the Portland, Oregon, metro.

The company is planning to kick off construction of the first phase of its 200,000 sq ft data center in Hillsboro (about 20 miles west of Portland) in January 2013. This week it announced the acquisition of 15 acres of land in the town.

Aaron Wagenheim, a senior VP at T5, wrote in an email that the company chose to building Hillsboro because the location was a logical alternative for companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle market.

It has a better tax environment and lower energy rates (US$0.065 per kWh, according to Wagenheim), while also offering competitive network infrastructure (there are multiple carriers in the area and three transpacific landing stations nearby) and access to a deep talent pool.

Pete Marin, T5 president, said, “Hillsboro offers the best combination of low taxes, low power costs, a reliable infrastructure and easy access for out-of-region companies.”

At full build-out, the data center – housed in a purpose-designed building – will provide a total of 12.5MW. Phase I, however, will bring online 3.5MW, which Wagenheim expects to happen in October 2013.

T5 will “build to the PDU”, meaning the tenant will have to install all infrastructure upstream of the power distribution units, with the landlord taking care of the rest. The plan is to offer power densities up to 200 watts per square foot.

The company is currently finalizing the design, which it says will include indirect evaporative cooling and custom air handlers. T5 is designing the facility to earn a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the US Green Building Council.

T5 currently has another project under development. It is building a massive data center park in Colorado. The vision is to provide a 100MW data center park to retail, wholesale and enterprise tenants.

The company’s existing data centers are in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas markets, as well as a building “shell” in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.