Wachovia Corp. broke ground in April 2005 on a $400-million, 210,000-sq.-ft. (20,800-sq.-m.) production data center at a new industrial park in Birmingham, Ala.
      Robert Cashner, senior vice president, corporate real estate, says Wachovia, like other financial institutions, is driven by federal business continuity planning guidelines issued following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The bank's rapid growth also has its primary data center in North Carolina bursting at the seams, he says.
      "We needed to grow in a new space," Cashner says. "Once we knew we would go several hundred miles away, we did a site search to determine the best location."
      Wachovia began its process in November 2003 and selected Birmingham in October 2004, Cashner says, noting that a yearlong search isn't unusual for a critical data canter.
      Data centers, with duplicate mechanical and electrical infrastructure, are major consumers of electricity. Cashner says typical usage ranges from 40 to 80 watts per square foot. That compares to 5 watts per square foot for a typical office building, he says. Redundancy is critical. If one piece of equipment fails, another has to be in place to take over.
      Cashner says Wachovia wanted a site with a low disaster risk. That meant not being in an airport flight path and away from an Interstate highway or rail line. Also important was a business-friendly environment with low power costs.
      Wachovia pared possible locations down to about five, Cashner says. "Once we targeted those five, we engaged a real estate broker." Wachovia gave the broker its criteria list of more than 50 items, which included requirements such as access to reliable power and access to fiber cable for telecommunications.
      During this period of due diligence, Wachovia acquired Birmingham-based Southtrust Bank. Until then, the data center was headed elsewhere.
      "Southtrust was not on the radar screen, but the more we took a look at Birmingham, the more it became attractive," Cashner says. "It's a gem, it's hidden in plain sight and it's a great place to live. It will be on the map for more mission critical data centers in the future.
      "We looked at the FEMA geological survey composite risk index and Birmingham would be called a low risk location," Cashner says. "Most of Alabama and Birmingham, specifically, is in a low-risk environment."
      A "lights out" facility, the new data center won't be a major job generator, with just 30 to 40 employees. Plans call for it to be operational in October 2006.
      Wachovia is also doubling the work force at its Birmingham call center to 400 employees.
      The Hartford Financial Services Group opened a new 96,700-sq.-ft. (9,000-sq.-m.) life insurance operations center in Maple Grove, Minn., a western suburb of the Twin Cities, in April. The three-story building is home to about 600 employees who moved from a facility in Plymouth, which will continue to house some IT and project management functions.
      Mike Keeler, a Hartford senior vice president, says the overwhelming driver of the company site choice was employee retention.
      "We drew a map with concentric rings and plotted the commutes of all our employees, and our corporate real estate department used that to come up with a number of choices," Keeler says. "Locating within a 10-mile [16-km.] radius of our existing site was our preference."
      Hartford's Minnesota facility is the operations center for all of the company's personal life insurance business, which Keeler says is "growing robustly." The new building can be expanded as business warrants, he says.