Brookfield buys O’Hare data center for $84M

Add another data center to Brookfield’s rapidly-growing portfolio.

An affiliate of the Toronto-based firm recently paid $83.5 million for the ORD2 building at 2425 Busse Road in Elk Grove Village, near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, CoStar reported. The deal equates to roughly $497 per square foot.

A Deutsche Bank affiliate was the seller of the 163,800-square-foot building.

The sale is part of Brookfield’s purchase of Cyxtera Technologies, a bankrupt data center firm. The acquisition of Cyxtera’s assets, worth $775 million, aligns with Brookfield’s strategy to expand its presence in the data storage sector. By combining Cyxtera’s properties with those of Brookfield’s Evoque data storage company, the firm owns over 50 locations, primarily in North America.

Brookfield’s purchase coincides with other significant data center investments near O’Hare. Digital Realty recapitalized two data centers nearby last year for $450 million.

In Itasca, NTT Global Data Centers purchased two office buildings for $27.5 million and aims to redevelop them into data centers. Farther northwest, Dallas-based Compass Datacenters acquired the former Sears headquarters in Hoffman Estates for $194 million, with plans to construct five data-storage buildings.

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Texas-based data center player Aligned has dished out $78 million for 36 acres of properties in the O’Hare area, all of which are poised for redevelopment. Most recently, the firm bought the 177,000-square-foot office building at 150 Northwest Point Boulevard for $14.2 million.

Sam Pollock, CEO of Brookfield’s infrastructure business, highlighted the strategic significance of the Cyxtera takeover in a recent letter to stakeholders, the outlet reported. He emphasized the company’s strengthened position as a leading retail colocation data center provider in North America, with significant capacity deployed across high-demand areas. 

—Quinn Donoghue