New Jersey had a strong year for data center leasing, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to real estate firm JLL.
The firm said in its 2020 Year-End Data Center Outlook that net absorption came in at 16 megawatts for the year, leaving the state with only 22 MW of vacancy out of 410 MW of inventory. There are 18 MW under construction and 16 MW of construction planned, however.
“New Jersey emerged as the tri-state leader in data center deployments,” Jason Bell, vice president of technology services at JLL, who co-authored the report, told ROI-NJ in a statement. “This was the most favorable location for data center capacity, cost-effective power, telecom network abundance and the financial liquidity exchanges and cloud ecosystems. The close proximity to the tri-state headquarter firms and the experienced IT labor pools contributed to the recent success that other markets also offer.”
JLL said a combination of financial services growth in early 2020 and the pandemic pausing the pipeline resulted in capacity increases expected in 2021. Demand continues to increase in financial services, life sciences and technology, it noted, with operators looking for anchor tenants to add to their portfolios.
The report noted that operators and tenants were expected to see a pause in Q1 of 2021, with a healthy recovery throughout the remainder of the year.
