When tech company HostDime started building a 100,000-square-foot data center along the east side of Interstate 4 in Eatonville back in 2021, the project was expected to carry a construction price tag of $35 million.
The seven-story structure that’s been taking shape for years has wound up costing much more than that.
As construction draws to a close in the next four to five months, Manny Vivar, the company’s founder and CEO, told GrowthSpotter about the many obstacles the project team had to overcome.
Today, the overall construction cost comes in at $58 million, a 65.7% increase over early estimates.
“We started construction in May 2021 in the middle of the pandemic and have been navigating construction post-pandemic,” Vivar said in an email. “This has resulted in many challenges you would expect from supply chain issues with electrical and mechanical equipment along with increased construction costs, now close to $60 million, due to escalating costs with labor and general delays due to workforce shortages.”
Despite the challenges, Vivar said HostDime has “remained committed” to finishing this new Tier IV Data Center and bringing it to market.
But for all the headaches the pandemic caused, it changed the way the public uses technology. That means the new data center has more usefulness now more than ever, Vivar said.
“Ironically the pandemic accelerated digital adoption,” he said, “and now with the rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) this data center will be the backbone of digital infrastructure that has lacked in Central Florida for businesses to house all levels of workloads in the cloud locally.”
Company officials previously said it would house critical infrastructure that powers the cloud and a massive collection of servers that store data.
The company purchased five acres for the project from the Orange County School Board in 2016 for $1.4 million. The property was formerly part of the 100-acre campus of Robert Hungerford Preparatory School.
Founded in 1897 as a segregated high school for Black students, the school was shuttered in 2009.
The town and school leaders had for years been hoping to see new development on the old campus but have fought over its future in recent months.
The new data center will hold all of HostDime’s U.S.-based employees — 60 workers upon opening, but eventually as many as 200 in the long term.
“HostDime’s new facility will be one of the most densely-connected data centers in Florida and the most connected facility in Orlando Metro area,” the company’s website says. “As the Internet continues to evolve and penetrate globally, the need for networks to interconnect will become more adopted, especially with the onset of 5G. Content providers like Netflix, YouTube, and public cloud providers demand high-capacity connectivity and will want to connect to major hubs in areas like Central Florida. This facility will be the meeting point for such needs.”
In 2015, the Eatonville Town Council unanimously voted to commit $200,000 to the Hostdime project to help pay for infrastructure around the site. The council is expected to vote in the coming weeks on that payment allocation.
Hostdime also agreed to provide Eatonville’s 2,300 residents free Wi-Fi. Vivar said that plan is still in place, but details are being worked out.
“We will have to figure out how the Town of Eatonville can get a grant for us to install fiber to the homes for us to feed the free internet to the residents,” he said. ” The free Wifi is akin to water; we still need the pipes to feed the water to the homes.”
Upon entry into the data center, guests would be greeted by a three-story atrium with a roundabout entrance. This atrium will also house a mosaic video display spanning 36 feet tall and 10 feet wide, according to the website.
The top floor will feature a large conference room and training center with a hybrid indoor/outdoor floor plan to be used as an event space with 3,500 square feet of outside terrace. It is designed to host national and global tech conferences for up to 300 people.
“This data center will improve the digital infrastructure in the Orlando Metro market,” Vivar said. “We are passionate about the role we play in developing these unique facilities that have such a big purpose in the way technology is consumed. We are beyond excited to bring this world-class data center to market in Q1 2024”
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at (407)-800-1161 or dwyatt@GrowthSpotter.com. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
