Doubling Down on Data
BOYERS — Iron Mountain, the records management and shredding firm, is involved in a $200 million project to expand its computer data center.
Mark Kidd, senior vice president and general manager of the data center, said the industry is growing rapidly.
He said there will always be a market for people wanting to store physical items such as paper and film.
“The industry ... is about $10 billion and growing about 15 percent annually,” Kidd said. “It's a huge industry.”
The facility, which is in a former mine, has had data rooms since the 1980s, but Kidd said the company ramped up its computer data center in the mid 2000s.
Planning began in 2013, and the current project is expected to go on until 2019.
“We've been building in phases,” Kidd said.
A main part of the project involves keeping the data center cool. Kidd said the rooms and computers carry a significant cost, but so does keeping those rooms cool with conventional systems.
Now, the company plans to use a large underground lake in the facility that formed from decades of mining activity before Iron Mountain took over. The water will be pumped from the lake to the computer rooms and then back to the lake, where it will be reused.
Using this natural resource will keep energy costs low, Kidd said.
Other work will include setting up batteries, generators and other power distribution infrastructure for the computer rooms.
Kidd said the work will be done in five phases with one phase likely done per year. The first phase, which Kidd said will cost about $25 million total, is expected to be completed in April.
He added that there are about 10 acres underground that can be expanded for the data center.The project has created about 100 construction jobs, and when the work is finished, there will be about 15 to 20 permanent employees added by the company as well as other employees that clients will add.For the most part, Iron Mountain is paying for the project. However, last year, it received a $2 million grant from a state program called the Economic Growth Initiative. Kidd said state Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21st, and former state Rep. Dick Stevenson, R-8th, were helpful in obtaining the grant.“It was definitely a kickstarter,” Kidd said.The facility has about 2,000 clients with the data center having 20. Kidd said he expects to gain about 40 new clients for the data center per year with the expansion.The U.S. Coast Guard and Englewood Hospital in New Jersey are two new data center clients.Iron Mountain has been at its location off Branchton Road since the 1950s. About 2,500 people work there.
