5295 Brook Hollow Parkway, Norcross, GA

NORCROSS, GA—MDRE Equities has signed a 10-megawatt, 85,800-square-foot lease with Miners Lounge for a crypto-mining and hosting facility at 5295 Brook Hollow Parkway in Norcross, GA.

Norcross-based Miners Lounge, represented by Stewart Wallace and Land Wright of SK Commercial Realty, provides infrastructure for third-party crypto miners and enterprise blockchain users, with the capacity to host more than 4,000 miners.

The encryption technology known as “blockchain” is used to verify transactions by encoding them in a data file known as a public ledger. Crypto mining ensures the validity of the public ledger file by using mathematical processes to verify the accuracy of the transaction records. Crypto-miners are rewarded for the volume and accuracy of their work by being given access to crypto-currencies. The process requires large amounts of both computer processing capability and electric power.

CBRE's Tim Huffman, senior vice president, and Mike Lash, senior associate, represented Baltimore-based MDRE Equities in the transaction.

“We've been very busy advising on real estate strategies for cryptocurrency initiatives across the country,” says Huffman. “These projects are unique in that they require very dense power with lower levels of redundancy. They also require a modification to the way the data center space is cooled by primarily removing hot air from of the building rather than blowing cool air into the building.”

“Because data centers are such complex buildings, leasing them up requires a very unique skill set,” says Ernie Moyer, founder, MDRE Equities. “CBRE's Mike Lash and Tim Huffman did an exceptional job of marketing and leasing this property for us.”

“Georgia is one of the premier data center development markets in the US, in large part due to the low cost of power and the recent passage of House Bill 696, which provides relief from the state sales and use tax on data center infrastructure and IT equipment,” Huffman says.

The Atlanta area is the seventh-largest data center market in the US, with 131 MW of inventory as of Q2 2018, according to CBRE Research. Atlanta is also a strong market for tech talent, ranking ninth on CBRE's recent Scoring Tech Talent report, which uses 13 metrics to measure each market's depth, vitality and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment.

CBRE has the world's only fully integrated data center real estate service offering, providing strategy, acquisition and disposition representation, project management and facilities management from a single provider.

CORRECTION, 8/30/2018, 8:31 p.m.: Because of incomplete information provided to GlobeSt.com, an earlier version of this story omitted the names of the brokers representing Miner's Lounge in the lease deal. The tenant was represented by Stewart Wallace and Land Wright of SK Commercial Realty,