Amazon Pays $136M for Yet Another NoVA Data Center Complex

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The world’s largest online retailer has added another data center campus in Northern Virginia to its already massive portfolio — including one it was already occupying in a sale-leaseback.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) purchased a 33-acre complex dubbed TransDulles Centre 2, at 45900, 45930 and 45950 Pathfinder Plaza in Sterling, Va., for $135.8 million, according to the Business Journal

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A fund advised by CBRE Investment Management (formerly CBRE Global Investors) sold the property, which features three buildings comprising 442,000 square feet. The fund acquired the site in early 2018 for about $111 million, according to property records. 

The three data centers on the site were built in 2017, with AWS occupying them as a tenant before ultimately adding them to its cart, per the Business Journal.

“We are constantly evaluating new locations based on customer demand,” a spokesperson for AWS told Commercial Observer in an email, though did not offer more information. A representative CBRE Investment Management did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Amazon is one of the largest owners of data center space in the country, owning 26 separate parcels with a total footprint of 514 acres in Loudoun County, Va., alone. At the beginning of last year, the house that Jeff Bezos built pledged a whopping $35 billion in Virginia data center investment through 2040. 

The deal for TransDulles Centre 2 is just the latest for AWS so far this year. In late May, it paid $218 million for 91 acres of land in Manassas, Va., that was pre-approved for data center development. Meanwhile, it had already paid $152 million for  140 acres for such development  in Manassas in January.

The e-commerce giant is far from the only entity making huge investments in data centers lately. 

Prologis, the country’s largest owner of industrial space and known as Amazon’s favorite landlord, is betting big on the data center market in the coming years, evangelizing in a recent earnings call that such spaces will likely be a major source of future business growth. The company in March anointed a new leader for its $25 billion data center investment and development arm, and earlier this month began attempting to rezone 94 acres it owns in Northern Virginia to allow for more density. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at NTrombola@commercialobserver.com.