Compass Datacenters, a Dallas-based company specializing in data center campuses, is reportedly under contract to purchase the 273-acre former Sears headquarter campus in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Compass Datacenters is currently in the process of being acquired by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, according to the Daily Herald.
Following the acquisition, Compass’s founder and CEO, Chris Crosby, along with the current management team, are expected to continue leading the company.
Crosby expressed optimism in the company’s future prospects, stating that with the strategic expertise and financial resources of Brookfield Infrastructure and Ontario Teachers’, Compass is well-positioned to meet the increasing demand for hyperscale data centers and campuses driven by artificial intelligence and cloud technologies.
Compass Datacenters has developed more than a dozen data centers worldwide, including locations in Minneapolis, Nashville, Montreal, Milan and Israel, according to their website.
The campus in Hoffman Estates is currently owned by Transformco and consists of seven interconnected office buildings and 120 undeveloped acres. Its assessed value was $50 million in 2021, down from $150 million in 2013.
This purchase is part of a larger data center trend in Hoffman Estates, which started with Microsoft’s acquisition of a 53-acre site nearby, where it is constructing a pair of 207,000-square-foot data centers, reported the Daily Herald. Moreover, Microsoft acquired an adjacent 30 acres in February, prompting local officials to propose an electricity tax rate increase for high-volume users, such as data centers, to fund the replacement of the village’s aging Fire Station 22 at 1700 Moon Lake Blvd.
