US data center operator TierPoint has secured new securization funding and acquired a site it was leasing in Pennsylvania.

The company this week announced the completion of a new $240 million asset-backed securities (ABS) issuance and the acquisition of its largest, formerly leased data center in Pennsylvania, along with the campus on which that data center is located. Full terms of the deal weren’t shared.

TierPoint’s data center, at 9999 Hamilton Boulevard in Breinigsville outside Allentown, currently totals 122,000 sq ft (11,334 sqm) and around 16MW.

TierPoint has started a 100MW power expansion at the acquired 137-acre campus, commonly known as TekPark, that it expects to complete in the second half of 2026.

Net proceeds of the ABS transaction funded the purchase of the TekPark data center and campus, "significantly increasing" the company’s percentage of owned assets. Proceeds will also be used to refinance the remaining ABS debt maturity due in 2026.

“TierPoint continues to build on its exceptional growth trajectory, with strong demand for our digital infrastructure solutions, including market-leading enterprise, wholesale, and high-density colocation services that support artificial intelligence and other compute-intensive workloads,” said TierPoint chairman and CEO Jerry Kent. “This new financing increases our owned assets and positions us to continue responding to client demand through our planned expansion in TekPark, with exceptional service, support, highly available and reliable operations.”

The nine-building, 508,000 sq ft (47,194 sqm) TekPark was previously owned by real estate firm MRA Group. Built in 1987, the site was originally a Bell Laboratory site owned by AT&T.

AT&T spun out Bell Labs into Lucent Technologies, which in turn spun off its optical electronics division to Agere Systems. Agere sold its optoelectronics division and the Breinigsville site to TriQuint Semiconductor in 2003. Hamilton TEK Partners then bought the campus in 2005.

TierPoint took over the TekPark data center after acquiring Xand in 2014, which itself had taken over the facility in 2011 via the acquisition of DBSi. DBSi first announced plans for the data center back in 2008.

Clients at TekPark reportedly include large technology service providers that are using advanced cooling solutions in support of artificial intelligence and other compute-intensive, GPU-accelerated workloads.

Founded as Cequel in 2010, Argo-owned TierPoint operates around 40 data centers across 18 US markets, mostly in second-tier cities.

Cequel acquired TierPoint in 2012, taking on the latter’s name. In the intervening years, TierPoint has expanded through a mixture of new builds and acquisitions, including Colo4, Perimeter Technology Center, Adhost Internet Advertising, Baltimore Technology Park, Philadelphia Technology Park, Xand, CxP Data Centers, Altered Scale, Windstream Hosted Solutions, and Cosentry.

The company recently closed $500 million in asset-backed securities financing. It made two prior transactions in 2023 and 2024 and has now issued a total of $1.99 billion in asset-backed securities on a portfolio of 33 data centers.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have long been Pennsylvania's two main data center hubs, but new developments are being proposed across the state. Not traditionally a major data center market, the Keystone State has seen gigawatts of new capacity proposed in recent months as companies look to secure capacity for AI build-outs. A report published by DC Byte in September suggested Pennsylvania's data center market has grown exponentially, jumping from 231MW of total IT load in 2021 to around 7.8GW of planned load in 2025.

Guggenheim Securities, LLC acted as lead structuring advisor, lead left bookrunner, and placement agent for the securitized notes. Jeffries LLC acted as joint structuring advisor, joint bookrunner, and placement agent. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as counsel to TierPoint, and Latham & Watkins LLP as counsel to Guggenheim.