US Signal starts construction on new data center
US Signal Co. LLC began construction this week on a new data center in Van Buren Township, between Detroit and Ann Arbor.
Work on the 100,000-square-foot data center, US Signal’s fourth in Michigan and eighth in the Midwest, began after the planning commission for Van Buren Township approved plans for the project.
The Grand Rapids-based company told MiBiz last fall that it’s running out of room at an existing data center in Southfield as clients increasingly opt for off-site or cloud-based data storage run by outside I.T. service providers.
The company began planning the new data center last year after a client survey confirmed that the majority of businesses were already utilizing third-party data center and cloud providers to manage day-to-day operations of their I.T. infrastructure. The trend will become even more pronounced in the coming years, David Wisz, executive vice president of Operations at US Signal, said in a news release this week on the project.
“More businesses than ever before are opting for managed data center solutions and services — and we have responded with new strategic and technical partnerships. All these factors make our data center investment both prudent and timely — enabling us to further extend our offering and fuel our growth far into the future,” Wisz said.
US Signal also operates about 14,000 mile of optic fiber in 10 states. The company employs about 200 people and has clients nationwide, about 70 percent of which are based in the Midwest.
In addition to the four Michigan facilities, including two in the Grand Rapids area, plus Southfield, US Signal has data centers Oakbrook, Ill., Madison, Wis., and Indianapolis and South Bend, Ind. Data centers are at least 200 miles apart and operate on separate power grids to minimize potential disruptions from natural disasters.
Posted By: MiBiz on June 7, 2019.
