Together with Metro Edge, we will reshape the technology profile of the district and offer the local community access to connectivity and career opportunities that will make us competitive with other areas of Chicago.
CHICAGO (PRWEB) September 22, 2022
Metro Edge Development Partners, a commercial real estate investment firm and Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), announced that the company has executed a 75-year ground lease on a 1.97-acre parcel in the Illinois Medical District (IMD) that includes exclusivity to build and operate a high-performance data center.
Metro Edge has begun planning and permitting for a 21 Megawatt (MW), five-story data center comprising approximately 191,000 square feet. The greenfield data center will be located two miles west of the Loop in Chicago in the IMD, which represents the largest concentration of healthcare institutions, biotech hubs, and tech incubators in the state. The IMD is second largest medical district in the country serving over 80,000 visitors daily, including 29,000 employees.
“Metro Edge was founded with the intention of building data centers in underserved urban locations,” said Craig Huffman, CEO of Metro Edge. “These infill locations are typically overlooked by traditional institutional owners but offer a unique opportunity to facilitate meaningful change in a community with a thoughtful, integrated development.”
A healthcare-anchored data center in the IMD can positively impact low-income and medically vulnerable communities on the West Side of Chicago while addressing the urgent need for many of the IMD’s anchor healthcare institutions to upgrade their outdated data center infrastructure. The Metro Edge site possesses robust access and low-latency proximity to the utilities, fiber, and power required for a world class data center.
“The Illinois Medical District offers a unique ecosystem of knowledge, collaboration and resources, plus the opportunity to positively impact the surrounding communities on the West and South Side of the city,” said Allyson Hansen, CEO and Executive Director at the IMD. Together with Metro Edge, we will reshape the technology profile of the district and offer the local community access to connectivity and career opportunities that will make us competitive with other areas of Chicago.”
Metro Edge is currently fielding numerous pre-leasing requests from firms who see the new data center as an opportunity to gain access proximity to healthcare, technology, education, and life science organizations within the IMD and downtown Chicago.
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About Metro Edge Development Partners
Metro Edge Development Partners is a Chicago-based commercial real estate investment firm and Minority Business Enterprise (MBE). Our mission is to pursue institutional-quality investment opportunities that deliver exceptional results to our financial and community partners. Led by a team with decades of private equity real estate experience, Metro Edge targets data centers, life sciences and technology-oriented developments in primary urban locations around the country. Simply put, we create significant value in areas overlooked by our competitors. To learn more, please visit https://medp.io.
