Virginia-Based PowerHouse To Build 1M‑SF Data Center Campus in Irving

McLean, Virginia-based PowerHouse Data Centers and Chicago- and London-based investment management firm Harrison Street have completed a 50-acre land purchase in Irving’s Las Colinas for the buildout of PowerHouse Irving.

When completed, the nearly 1 million-square-foot data center campus will deliver 200 MW of power, the partners announced. The entry into Dallas-Fort Worth—the second-largest data center market in the U.S., after D.C.-adjacent Northern Virginia—marks the continued expansion into new markets for PowerHouse, a leading real estate partner for next-generation hyperscale data centers and a division of American Real Estate Partners.

Located at 111 Customer Way, PowerHouse Irving is the third multi-phased data center development to be announced this year by the company, following PowerHouse Reno in Nevada and PowerHouse 95 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

The Irving campus will feature “three powered shell data centers totaling over 946,000 square feet, with a total power load of 67 MW per building,” the company said. The site has “immediate access to permanent power from an existing adjacent substation” serviced by Oncor

Project construction is slated to begin in early 2025, with the first powered shell set to be delivered by late 2025.

Entering ‘a hugely important connectivity hub’

“Location, speed to market, and power performance are critical to everything we do,” PowerHouse Founder and CEO Doug Fleit said in a statement. “Irving-Las Colinas has developed into a hugely important connectivity hub with major financial influence, and is an integral part of the Dallas market which has the fourth-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation and the 20^th-largest economy in the world.”

“We’re excited to deliver the first of several planned projects to serve one of the most dynamic data center markets in the world—and provide first-rate connectivity solutions for hyperscale customers,” Fleit added.

Dallas Innovates last wrote about DFW’s “considerable surge” in data center demand in February, in an article on JLL’s H2 2023 North American Data Center Report.

PowerHouse noted Irving-Las Colinas’ reputation as Texas’ “Headquarters of Headquarters” as one reason for the site selection, along with the city’s “unmatched transportation links, with access to multiple highways and public transportation” and access to “4.4 million skilled workers, all within a 30-minute commute of the city.” The company was also attracted by the fact that North Texas is one of the country’s key tech hubs, “hosting more than 40% of the advanced technology workers in Texas.”

‘A major hyperscale compute cluster’

Michael Hochanadel, managing director and head of digital at Harrison Street, said Dallas‘ established data market “is seeing significant growth and serves as a major hyperscale compute cluster for the central region.”

“We’re leveraging our valued partnership with PowerHouse to deliver much-needed capacity to this high-growth area, meeting escalating demand-driven cloud, AI, and other use cases,” he added in a statement.

Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer called his city ” a prime destination for vital data infrastructure projects,” adding, “Our skilled workforce, transportation links, central location, and ease of doing business attract companies ready to build the base for future high technology applications.”

Beth A. Bowman, president and CEO of the Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce and Irving Economic Development Partnership, sees the new project as a continuation of an ongoing regional story.

“CBRE recently confirmed Dallas-Fort Worth as the second largest market for data centers in the U.S.,” she said in a statement. “This is no surprise, as Irving continues to attract world-class data infrastructure projects, the backbone of the digital economy. Our unmatched local and global connectivity, central geographic location, quality of life, and pro-business mindset offer data center companies the opportunity to grow their presence right here in Irving-Las Colinas”

The PowerHouse-Harrison Street joint venture currently has three campus developments completed or underway in Northern Virginia, the organizations said, “with an executed lease, pre-lease, or LOI for 100% of the buildable square feet.”