DCK has a post on 601 Polk opening its doors for co-location business.
AlteredScale Opens Doors at 601 Polk in Chicago
601 West Polk in Chicago is the home of a new data center for AlteredScale. The facility will be managed by Norland Managed Services.
601 West Polk is alive and kicking. The 100 year old structure just west of the Loop in Chicago has been through a lot over the years, including a previous owner passing through bankruptcy. After several millions of dollars worth of renovations. AlteredScale, a provider of mission critical data center solutions, announced this week that it has chosen Norland Managed Services to operate and maintain its data center at 601 West Polk.
But, this opening is not so much news as a milestone in a long process.
First the President of AlteredScale, Kevin Francis is a good friend and we have had many conversations over the past 3 years. We've had fun at SXSW. Discussed many changes in the data center industry, and caught up on what's up with our personal lives. A year and half ago I went into 601 Polk when it was a shell and met many of the people who were working on the project.
About 6 months ago, Kevin said he was looking for options of who could run facility operations at 601 Polk. There is a short list of who could do the work and you know the list. Given Kevin is a close friend, I made an introduction to another good friend Norland Managed Services, General Manager North America Steve Manos. You could view this as a favoritism to take care of your buddies. Or you could see that good people working together is what the industry needs more of. This could be the end of the process, but I know I'll be chatting with Kevin again to hear how 601 Polk is running and how Norland is able to work with his co-location environment. And, I'll be talking to Steve Manos soon (most likely at 7x24 Exchange in Boca) as well, and thinking of more interesting ways to work in the industry. Steve started data center socials in Chicago and LV, mine is in Santa Clara. We'll see where we go next.
It is a milestone to make the announcement, but it is not really news when I saw the space 1 1/2 years ago, and made the introductions between AlteredScale and Norland 6 months ago.
May 17th, 2013