Digital Realty Trust: GI Partners Acquires Ashburn Facility From Digital Realty

Digital Realty has sold GI Partners a data center in Ashburn, Virginia. According to Dgtl Infra, Digital Realty has sold the property at 43915 Devin Shafron Drive in Loudoun County to a private equity company. The single-story, 9 MW, 132,280 square foot building, also known as Building A, purportedly sold for $150 million. The structure is still advertised on the website of Digital Realty. Neither company has issued an official statement regarding the sale. According to Dgtl Infra, the facility was formerly part of a joint partnership with Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT (named Peakstone Realty Trust). It was earlier leased in its entirety to a social media company. 

In 2020, a key data center client did not implement a long-term extension or renew its lease with the joint venture, according to the publication. Griffin settled the debt in cash after the property's lender issued a notice of default for nonpayment. The JV was then dissolved, with Digital compensating Griffin $4 million. The recently sold data center is located on Digital's 98-acre, 230MW campus. In 2007, Digital paid $62.5 million to acquire the Devin Shafron buildings, formerly known as the Loudoun Exchange. A significant portion of the campus is leased to Amazon. Archon constructed the original campus structures in 2001 under Genisus Loudoun Exchange. In the aftermath of the dot-com collapse, the WSJ noted the absence of leasing demand at the campus.