Mission Critical Magazine

Stopping the presses at the Chicago Sun Times led to the rise of a one-of-a-kind mission critical powerhouse on Chicago’s South Side. The 317,000-sq-ft legacy printing facility is now a robust colocation data center, featuring low latency, high reliability, and redundant infrastructure that swaps the written word for digital content — a real sign of the times.

The 29-acre site, fully re-imagined by international data center developer QTS and local MEP engineers Environmental Systems Design (ESD), is just one 24 MW data center currently under development in the Chicago area — a new hot bed for mission critical growth.

Thanks to a rich infrastructure identified in an early Data Center Development Services (DCDS) study by ESD Consulting, including existing robust underground communication and fiber, power and electrical service, and thick slabs and floors, no major utility upgrades or additional coordination was needed for data center deployment.

Taking advantage of the local climate with modular, dry KyotoWheel™ technology, QTS Chicago was built to achieve an annualized power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.17, while championing flexibility and innovative mechanical cooling solutions. Running a dry-type indirect economizer system, QTS Chicago is a good steward of the environment, not guzzling fresh water or discharging hardened water to the local watershed. At the core of the data center’s robust, efficient design are QTS’ three Cs: customization (C1), colocation (C2), and cloud management services (C3)...

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QTS Data Center
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