WASHINGTON — Boston-based data center operator Iron Mountain Inc. has opened the first phase of its planned $350 million data center campus in Manassas, Virginia.
The 165,000-square-foot cloud storage facility marks Iron Mountain’s first facility in Northern Virginia and its fifth U.S. data center market, in addition to facilities in Boston, Denver, Kansas City and Western Pennsylvania.
Iron Mountain plans two additional phases that will add another three facilities on its 83-acre Manassas campus.
“Iron Mountain is opening what we believe is one of the most compelling data center offerings in Northern Virginia,” said Mark Kidd, senior vice president and general manager of Iron Mountain data centers.
“Our new campus provides superior physical security, lower power costs and a reduced tax structure,” he said.
Iron Mountain says it invested more than $80 million in the first phase of its Manassas campus. When complete, the Iron Mountain Manassas campus will total about 375,000 square feet and eventually employ about 50 IT professionals.
Data centers are physically huge facilities, but don’t necessarily employ a large number of people. Jobs they do create are generally high-paying jobs — averaging $100,000 a year in Iron Mountain’s case — and are mostly engineers and cybersecurity gatekeepers.
Iron Mountain Information Management received $500,000 in water and sewer availability fee credits as an incentive from Prince William County’s Industrial Development Authority as part of its decision to locate in Manassas. The data center is at 11650 Hayden Rd.
Northern Virginia, considered the data center capital of the nation, accounts for about 20 percent of the nation’s market share in enterprise demand, with 7.5 million square feet of data center space in use in Northern Virginia, and another 1 million square feet in the works.
Since 2006, more than 6,600 new jobs and over $11.8 billion in investments have been made in Virginia’s data center industry, according to Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Last week, San Francisco-based Digital Realty, another major data center company, completed its $7.8 billion acquisition of District-based data center operator DuPont Fabros Technology.
