Vantage Lands $3B Green Loan for North American Expansion
Vantage Data Centers has obtained a $3 billion green loan for the expansion of its North American footprint. A bank syndicate led by Wells Fargo Securities LLC, along with joint bookrunners TD Securities, Truist Securities Inc. and Scotiabank, provided the revolving credit facility.
Vantage secured the funds with an initial collateral pool of eight leased and greenfield sites in new and existing markets, totaling 1.4 gigawatts of IT capacity. The structure of the green loan allows for faster time-to-market than typical construction financing and includes the option to add more assets to the credit facility.
This new round of financing brings Vantage’s total to $10 billion for 2024, already as much as the company secured throughout the entire last year. In January, the data center provider landed $6.4 billion in equity led by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake. In March, it obtained $64 million for the development of its first data center in Taiwan.
Ready for AI deployments
Vantage’s North America platform currently includes 12 campuses across the U.S. and Canada. Commercial Property Executive reached out to the company to find out which of these campuses are involved in this deal, but Vantage declined to comment.
However, it is almost certain that one of properties is VA3 in Ashburn, Va. This is an upcoming, 288-megawatt campus, set to encompass 2.8 million square feet upon full buildout. Vantage applied for its development in last February, according to Data Center Dynamics. The company had acquired the 134-acre plot of land at 19509 Belmont Ridge Road for $180 million in 2022.
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VA3 will be Vantage’s third campus in Ashburn, planned to include seven multi-story data centers powered by two Dominion Energy substations. According to its data sheet, it will be capable of power densities of up to 300 watts per square foot, which is on the higher end.
This density indicates the campus will be ready for AI deployments. In December, Vantage Senior Vice President Steve Conner told CPE that AI will require rack densities up to five times higher than traditional cloud computing—which, in turn, will have more complex cooling requirements.
Green loans pave the way for sustainable development
Vantage secured this fifth green loan under its Green Finance Framework, which guides development and sustainability strategy along five core areas: greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water, waste and community. Under this framework, data centers will need a power usage effectiveness of 1.5 or below to qualify.
Loudoun County, Va., where Vantage’s new campus is located, is among the top areas in the U.S. for leasing activity, according to a recent CBRE report on North American markets. This area has had issues with power delivery in the past, as it is one of the densest data center regions in the world. However, the same research shows that Dominion Energy—the main provider for Virginia—is working on new transmission lines that are bound to deliver sufficient capacity by 2026.
PowerHouse Data Centers recently closed on a 145-acre site in Spotsylvania, Va., for a massive, 800-megawatt campus. It is developing the project in a joint venture with Harrison Street and plans to deliver an initial 150 megawatts by October 2025.
Speed-to-market in Northern Virginia is primarily driven by power and entitlement timelines. Still, the market remains a top choice for developers, with vacancy rates at roughly 1.4 percent as of December, and more than 1.2 gigawatts of capacity under construction, CBRE data shows.
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