A Denver-based developer is set to build a data center not far from one it already owns near O’Hare International Airport, a project that comes as Chicago and other major markets head toward virtually zero availability of data storage space.
Stack Infrastructure on Tuesday announced plans to build a 36-megawatt data center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, just west of the massive airport in Chicago.
In a statement, Stack said its new project will be a two-story, 263,000-square-foot building within a mile of its current CHI01 campus.
Stack’s new project is emerging as some industry professionals predict that data storage space in top markets will all but dry up sometime in 2025 amid continued high demand for cloud storage as well as new drivers such as the fast-expanding artificial intelligence sector, which is known for gobbling up power and data storage capacity.
"As demand for digital infrastructure grows, we look forward to bringing new and innovative capacity to the Chicago region — one of North America’s most critical data center markets," Mike Casey, chief technology officer of Stack Americas, said in the statement. "This new development in Elk Grove Village will provide much-needed capacity while repurposing existing industrial space into a high-value asset for the region."
Northern Virginia is far and away the largest area for data storage. Chicago is among other large players in the sector, with Elk Grove Village and other suburbs near O’Hare at the center of the action.
Stack describes the O’Hare area as one of the most competitive and capacity-constrained data markets in the country.
Recent data-center investments in Elk Grove Village include Digital Realty Trust’s recapitalization that valued a two-building property at $900 million, with that firm and new majority owner GI Partners also later taking out a new $185 million loan on a third data center in the suburb.
“Elk Grove Village is proud to welcome Stack’s new development, which exemplifies the kind of investment that drives our local economic growth while rejuvenating valuable industrial real estate," Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said in the Stack statement. "This project brings meaningful job opportunities and resourceful development to one of our most vital business corridors. We look forward to the long-term benefits it will bring to both our community and the broader technology ecosystem."
Stack’s statement did not specify the location within Elk Grove Village, and the company did not respond to requests from CoStar News for additional comment.
But CoStar data and Cook County property records show that Stack earlier this month paid almost $42.1 million for about 27 acres of land about a mile from the firm’s existing data center on Touhy Avenue. The recently acquired property includes several industrial and flex buildings within the Fortune Business Campus along Howard Street and Busse Road.
The seller of the industrial campus was Chicago-based Riverbend Industries. That firm is an affiliate of a partner in the planned data-center development, according to Stack’s statement.
Stack is part of New York-based Blue Owl Capital, which early this year completed the acquisition of Stack’s Chicago-based parent company, IPI Partners.
In the statement, Stack said the new facility, which will use a closed-loop water cooling system, “will transform vacant real estate into a state-of-the-art facility optimized for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud workloads.”
AI’s emergence has led to a wide range of data-storage projects throughout the country, ranging from small storage pods placed on former steel-plant sites near nuclear power plants to sprawling facilities designed for the likes of Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
In many cases, buildings such as suburban office campuses and warehouses are giving way to highly specialized, ground-up data-center developments. That includes Dallas-based Compass Datacenters’ ongoing project to demolish Sears’ former corporate headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and replace it with multiple phases of data-storage construction.
The national and international race for more AI capacity took on added urgency early this year when Chinese upstart DeepSeek said it had created a less costly AI model. Industry professionals told CoStar News that such open-source innovation could lower the barrier to entry to AI, further increasing demand for data centers.