Amazon’s deal to snap up a research and office property near Los Angeles is the tech giant’s latest move as it aggressively expands its data center foothold across the country through acquisitions and development — not just leases.
Amazon Web Services shelled out more than $78 million for a 164,000-square-foot space at 2964 Bradley St. in Pasadena. The 8-acre site was once a data center for telecommunications firm EarthLink before being redeveloped.
The company is expected to use the site to power its cloud business lines, but it could also tap some of the property for offices depending on how its acquisition strategy plays out nationally, real estate professionals tell CoStar News. Amazon didn’t comment.
The purchase lands as Amazon accelerates data center development across the country, adding more than 3.8 gigawatts of capacity over the past year and looking for power-rich pockets in Southern California where such large-scale projects can plug in quickly. It’s expecting another gigawatt to come online by the end of the year, an addition equivalent to powering roughly 750,000 homes simultaneously.
The deal also comes just weeks after Amazon paid $700 million for 188 acres in Prince William County, Virginia, for future data center expansion at Devlin Technology Park.
“Amazon appears to have slowed leasing activity and shifted toward ground-up development and property acquisitions to grow its local footprint,” said Jesse Gundersheim, CoStar’s senior director of market analytics for Los Angeles.