Data Center Construction Soars Nationwide

NJ1 Data Center in Piscataway, NJ, a 360,000 square foot building near Newark Airport.

CHICAGO—The increasingly common use of smartphones sent demand for new data centers soaring in 2016, and the resulting development boom shows no sign of abating. According to a new mid-year report from Chicago-based JLL, data center construction in North America has so far increased 43% from 2016. Leasing activity slowed down from the breakneck pace seen in the first half of 2016, but experts say all the signs point to the sector getting another boost over the next six months.

“In the first half of 2016, we saw the large cloud providers lease a tremendous amount of space,” Curt Holcomb, a Dallas-based executive vice president with JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. And these firms seem to have taken a breather this year as they concentrate on utilizing the space taken up in 2016.