Flexential, T5 Dramatically Expanding Data Center Campus In Hot Oregon Market

Flexential is launching a significant expansion of its data center campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, a market that has emerged as the industry's dominant hub in the Pacific Northwest.

The co-location and private cloud provider will operate a build-to-suit 54-megawatt facility to be developed by T5 Data Centers, the companies announced Wednesday.

The site of the build-to-suit project is adjacent to Flexential’s existing campus in the northwestern data center hub. Flexential has its growing Hillsboro footprint as a key connectivity point in a market dominated by hyperscalers and others in the tech sector looking for access to major undersea cables.

“It was a clear, necessary next step to expand our Hillsboro footprint as demand continues to increase in a region that offers a direct, fast connection to APAC,” Flexential Chief Operating Officer Ryan Mallory said in a release. “We look forward to the continued growth and success of this campus.”

Planned as a two-phase project, the development will first see 18 megawatts deployed in a repurposed 138K SF building that already exists on the site, according to T5. The final phase will entail 36 megawatts in a new, 358K SF building.

Once completed, the full capacity of Flexential’s Hillsboro campus will exceed 100 megawatts. It’s part of a wave of expansion for Flexential, which will have added 33 megawatts of capacity by the end of this year, bringing its total deployed footprint across North America to around 220 megawatts in 19 markets. 

Two major cables, known as the New Cross Pacific and Hawaiki cables, land in Flexential’s facility, while three other large cables land nearby.

The presence of major subsea cables providing connectivity to the Asia Pacific market is a major factor that has drawn tech giants to Hillsboro. The small city has become the dominant data center hub for the Pacific Northwest, with 564 megawatts of existing inventory and accounting for around 85% of the region’s absorption in the first half of this year, according to a JLL report released last week. Nearly all occupants in the Hillsboro market are from the tech sector, mainly large hyperscale cloud providers.

But even amid record demand and dwindling inventory, JLL says power constraints will severely limit large scale development here in the near-term future — meaning Flexential and T5’s collaboration may be among the final large-scale projects in Hillsboro for the foreseeable future.