The lease for the first customer totals around 29,000square feet of turnkey space. Meanwhile, the second tenant has leased four turnkey computing spaces totaling nearly 89,000 squarefeet and 1,200 square feet of supporting office space. According toBrent Behrman, vice president of Global Sales for Digital Realty Trust, the building was leased ahead of budget allowing the company to begin construction planning for two additional data center facilities on the remaining two parcels at its Ashburn, VA campus.

Construction will begin on these facilities, which will be 155,000square feet with 20 MW of available power and 115,000 square feet with 14 MW of available power, respectively, in the third quarter of 2010. They should deliver in Q1 of 2011.

Data centers--particularly those held by REITs--have performed wellin the recession. A report by Digital Realty Trust released earlier this year found that data centers will continue to expand this year and into 2011. According to the study, 83% of respondents are planning data center expansions in the next 12 to 24 months, while 36% have definite plans to make those expansions during 2010.

DC-based data center REIT DuPont Fabros, which has 1.8 million squarefeet of data centers in its portfolio including holdings in Ashburn, VA, is also capturing the demand for such operations. In an interview with GlobeSt.com last year, CEO Hossein Fateh explained that there are several drivers that are supporting data centers as a real estate asset class. Government initiatives are one; so is theproliferation of Web 2.0 technologies. Also, most enterprise companies require separate data center operations that are secure andredundant--which usually means turning to wholesale providers.

But while demand is surging, Fateh notes that supply has dwindledthanks to the credit crunch. Construction financing has affecteddevelopment in this sector as well; Dupont Fabros was forced to setaside plans for projects in New Jersey for that reason, he says.For developers or property owners with data center space alreadyavailable--or that can be reconfigured--that is good news in anotherwise bleak market.