Digital Realty Inks Leases Totaling 210,500 SF

SAN FRANCISCO-Digital Realty Trust Inc. has leased 210,000 sf in Santa Clara and Dublin, Ireland. The datacenter and Internet gateway REIT says a “Web 2.0 social networking company” leased an 86,000-sf building in Santa Clara and “one of Ireland’s largest telecommunications service suppliers” leased a new 124,500-sf building in Dublin.

In Santa Clara, the tenant’s lease was for turnkey datacenter space. In Dublin, the lease was split evenly between datacenter space and shell space with the necessary power to support a datacenter. Digital Realty didn’t detail the lease rates or terms associated with the leases, but it’s fourth quarter filing with the SEC sheds some light in that regard.

During the fourth quarter, Digital Realty signed leases for 429,000 sf, including 245,000 sf of datacenter and 112,000 sf of the aforementioned shell. The average annual GAAP rental rate for the datacenter was $125 per sf and the same for the shell space was $40.65 per sf. The company also leased 72,000 sf of “non-technical” at an average annual rate of $20.90 per sf.

In addition to the leases signed, leases commenced in the fourth quarter for 115,000 sf. Approximately 16,000 sf was datacenter, 109,000 sf was shell and 25,000 sf was non-technical. The average annual GAAP rental rate was $126.70 for the datacenter, $42.90 for the shell and $22.30 for the non-technical.

For the year, leases commenced for 761,000 sf, including 134,000 sf of datacenter, 550,000 sf of shell and 77,000 sf of non-technical. The average annual GAP rental rates were $143.60, $36.00 and $19.90, respectively.

Digital Realty SVP Chris Crosby says the fourth quarter datacenter leasing activity was a record, and that the demand is expected to continue this year. The company says it has seen the strongest demand in Chicago, Northern New Jersey, Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas and Northern Virginia in the US, and London, Dublin, and Paris in Europe.