American Electric Power Company announced in early October that it plans to move its corporate Columbus facility to a New Albany, Ohio data center built by Compass Datacenters. The New Albany data center will provide 20,500 square feet of space, 16,000 square feet of which will be dedicated to housing computing equipment and wiring.
AEP spokeswoman Tammy Ridout said that the old Columbus headquarters had been outgrown and was no longer able to meet the technological needs of the company.
“Our headquarters building was built in the early 1980s when we hardly had any computers, and our needs have grown exponentially since then,” said Ridout.
AEP agreed to buy the 9-acre Ohio data center site from Compass for $2.1 million in order to have ownership of the land and building as well as exclusivity on the site. AEP will spend an additional $22 million to build a new facility at the location to store equipment and data that was previously housed in the company’s Columbus data center. The New Albany facility will also provide easy access to a fiber optic network and other critical infrastructure.
Prior to the purchase of the New Albany facility, AEP was Compass’ first client in the area, and Compass is planning new projects in the area to accommodate a growing list of corporate customers.
AEP currently runs a separate 83,000 square foot transmission-operations center on 35 acres in New Albany, which has been in operation since 2008. The center is undergoing an expansion to handle increased traffic, adding a 195,000 square foot facility next door to the current center set to be completed in 2016.
