Telx and Mountain Development Corp. have kicked off construction of a new data center in Clifton, New Jersey, the colocation company announced Friday.

The data center will provide about 100,000 sq ft of colocation space in a 215,000 sq ft building. Mountain Development is building the shell for the campus.

Michael Terlizzi, executive VP of engineering and construction at Telx, said connectivity and the company’s existing customers would be of value to the facility’s future tenants.

“Our Peekay Cloud Connection Center offers customers secure and direct access to Telx's expansive ecosystem with close proximity to the most important telecommunications and fiber hubs in the world,” he said.

“Cloud Connection Center” is the name Telx gave its data centers that provide space and power for and interconnect an ecosystem of companies that provide or use cloud-based services or otherwise serve this slice of the outsourced-IT market. Telx has a total of 17 such data centers in nine metro areas around the US.

The future data center site is on Peekay Drive in Clifton, hence “Peekay” in the name of the facility. Telx has another data center nearby, which was also built by Mountain Development.

Telx originally announced its plans for this data center in November 2011, saying then it was planning to break ground before the end of that year.

New Jersey features comparatively low-cost energy and real estate, which makes it attractive for large data center builds. Connection to the neighboring New York City is another major selling point for the location, as the city is one of the world’s most important network interconnection points.

Telx offers direct interconnection between New Jersey and its data centers in two major New York City carrier hotels: 111 8^th Avenue (now owned by Google) and 60 Hudson St.

Telx changed ownership in September 2011, when investment firms Abry Partners and Berkshire Partners bought it for an undisclosed sum from GI Partners.