A strong business climate and robust infrastructure have combined to make Dallas-Fort Worth the 6th most important data center market in the United States, according to a new report from Jones Lang LaSalle.
And demand for the space isn’t going to let up anytime soon, said Bo Bond, co-head of JLL’s data center solutions team in Dallas: “There is an insatiable amount of demand happening across the globe,” he said. “As speculative development commences, we will begin to see a new crop of winners and losers in the data center arena.”

Among the study’s findings for Dallas:

• Demand is projected to grow at an average rate of 13 percent through 2014, tightening an already constrained market.

• Rental rates softened in the early part of this year, as landlords competed for tenants prior to the opening of new data center facilities.

• Demand will continue to outpace supply until a wave of new construction is completed in mid-2012. Rumored transactions in the market could seriously impact the 2012 deliverables.

Access to abundant, reliable power also will become an even more important factor in data center location decisions, Bond said. “Energy will continue to be one of the biggest market drivers,” he said “As power consumption in data centers continues to increase, users are increasingly concerned with power redundancy, capacity, and cost.”

Click here for the full report—including tips on what to look for in data center space. Below are snapshots of recent transactions and availabilities. (Click on charts for larger images.)