Data center building and management company Facility Gateway has partnered with owner of a data center in downtown Chicago to add more data center floor and to manage the facility in one of the tightest markets in the US in terms of supply of data center space.

Owner of the data center at 601 Polk St., Pi Data Holdings (PDH), recently bought it from the private-equity firm Ten X Capital. The building is also known as the Chicago Media Center.

Laurance Lewis, president of the real-estate brokerage Corporate Site Selectors who advised PDH in purchase of the building, said it had a "rare confluence of power and connectivity, but also, "if one needs more than 20,000 square-feet of real estate on a single floor, then 601 Polk is the only building in downtown Chicago that can accommodate that need today."

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There is about 40,000 sq ft of data center space in the building, occupied by four tenants, Lewis said. Facility Gateway is planning to add 20,000 sq ft of space and more power.

Supply of data center space in Chicago has reportedly been tight. Lewis said since the large carrier hotel at 350 E. Cermak Rd. became fully leased out, there has not been a single site in the market with space and power available for a substantial lease (about 20,000 sq ft or more).

Lewis echoed Jim Kerrigan, executive VP at the real-estate services firm Grubb & Ellis who said in August that Chicago was "probably the tightest market in the country for data centers."

The last large chunk of space and power on the market was at 350 E. Cermak and recently went to Savvis.