Brookfield Lends $200M on Chirisa’s Latest Data Center Development
By Cathy Cunningham September 18, 2023 2:28 pm
reprints
Chirisa Investments has landed $200 million in construction financing to develop a 242,000-square-foot turnkey data center in Chester, Va., Commercial Observer has learned.
The loan was provided by one of Brookfield (BN)’s infrastructure funds, sources familiar with the transaction said, while CBRE (CBRE)’s James Millon, Tom Traynor, Mark Finan and Kristina Metzger negotiated the debt.
The specific Brookfield fund couldn’t immediately be identified.
The property — at 1401 Meadowville Technology Parkway — has a total critical capacity of 27 megawatts and is part of an 88-acre campus owned by Chirisa but fully leased to CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider.
CoreWeave has a 12-year lease commitment at the property, with two five-year extension options, sources said.
The shell and core of the new property is complete, but the Brookfield financing will now help Chirisa complete tenant fit-outs for CoreWeave.
Its three new data halls will come online in October, January and April 2024.
A September report by CBRE showed that supply of data center capacity in primary markets increased by 491.5 megawatts, or 12 percent in the first half of 2023, compared with the same period in 2022. Further, an all-time high of 2,300 megawatts was under construction in primary markets at the time of the report, marking a 25 percent year-over-year increase.
“Strong demand and developer appetite continues to drive new construction,” the report reads. “However, a lack of readily available power and extended lead times for key pieces of electrical infrastructure are delaying construction timelines.”
Still, the overall vacancy rate for primary markets is at a near-record low, at only 3.3 percent, with Northern Virginia’s vacancy rate at 0.94 percent — the lowest of all U.S. markets.
Chirisa is an Ireland-headquartered investor focused on global digital infrastructure. In 2018, it announced the acquisition of a data center in Ashburn, Va., as the first of many under an expansion initiative to “deliver a number of new large-scale data center campuses,” in the area, according to a release.
Brookfield officials weren’t available for comment and CBRE officials declined to comment. Chirisa officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com.
