Data Center Deal
Commercial Observer
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The data center property market continues to chug along as a particular bright spot in commercial real estate. The latest example arrives via a nine-figure deal for a development site in Northern Virginia, for now the nexus of the industry in the U.S. Also for today: An interview with Sarah Hawkins, a leading executive with owner and developer Hines.
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— Tom Acitelli, Deputy Editor
Iron Mountain Pays $114M for NoVA Data Center Development Site
Iron Mountain is expanding its digital empire with another acquisition and large-scale data center development plan in Prince William County, Va. The Boston-based firm put down $113.5 million to buy 40 acres in Manassas from PRP Real Estate Investment Management. The deal closed late last week. Neither the buyer nor the seller returned requests for comment. Washington, D.C.-based PRP assembled the 40 acres between 2022 and 2023, and secured rezoning entitlements from the county for three data center buildings with a combined 1.1 million square feet called Manassas Point. While not nearly to the extent of neighboring Loudoun County, Prince William County has been growing as one of the next big data center hubs.
Hines’ Sarah Hawkins Surveys Opportunities Up and Down the East Coast
When Sarah Hawkins, CEO of the East Region at Hines, started her journey with the global real estate firm in 2012 as an assistant project manager, she never expected her career trajectory to land her in the C-suite. Hawkins caught what she described as the “development bug” after working on her first project, Seven Bryant Park, a 30-story Manhattan building designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. For Hawkins, being able to run her own projects and develop from the ground up was the ultimate career summit she hoped to reach. “I loved running development projects, and I had a passion and a desire to move up, to be able to really lead my own projects, and that was what I was most focused on,” Hawkins said. “I shifted into being able to lead my own projects in 2015, and that felt like the pinnacle. I would not have assumed that I would one day be in the position I’m in.”
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