Jan. 24, 2003 -- Global Innovation Partners went on a buying spree in the fourth quarter, acquiring five technology properties including a Weehawken, NJ carrier hotel and large data centers in the Denver, San Jose and Dallas markets.
GI Partners said it spent $160 million on the acquisitions, which encompassed 973,000 square feet of technology space. In addition to the four telecom/data center sites, the Menlo Park, Calif. investment firm also acquired a Fremont, Calif. office park with a biotech focus.
Four of the five properties are fully leased, according to Michael Foust, managing director of Global Innovation Partners, whose strategic investors are CalPERS, the world's largest public pension fund, and CB Richard Ellis Investors.
"These transactions fit well into our long-term strategy of acquiring strategic data centers, telecom, and technology facilities," said Foust. "We will continue to leverage our unique mix of real estate and private equity investment expertise to invest in technology-related assets and businesses."
The purchased assets include:

• Weehawken Data Center, a 312,000 square foot carrier hotel with tenants including Cable & Wireless (Exodus), Level 3 Communications, and Electronic Data Systems (EDS). The facility is presently fully leased.
• Denver Data Center, an 88,000 square foot facility that was built as the Network Operations Center for Relera Inc. The building includes a 50,000 square foot data center, as well as office space.
• NTT/Verio Premier Data Center in San Jose, a 131,000 square foot state-of-the-art data center located in the heart of the Silicon Valley. The site serves as one of two Premier Data Centers for NTT/Verio, which leases the entire building.
• VarTec Network Operating Center, a 135,000 square foot, single story office and data center facility located in the north Dallas suburban market. The property was completed in 1999 and is fully-leased by VarTec, a Dallas-based CLEC which uses the site for administrative offices and network operations
• Ardenwood Corporate Park, a four-building, 307,000 square foot, biotech/R&D complex in Fremont, Calif. Located off Route 84 at the core of the Silicon Valley biotech cluster, a portion of the property houses biotech lab and manufacturing, while the remainder serves as traditional R&D/office space. The property is currently 100 percent leased.

Foust said these buildings fit GI Partners' investment profile, which seeks top-quality technology space in premier markets.
"These facilities are well located and built to a high standard, and are going to be attractive to corporate users," said Foust. "None of these are distressed situations, by any means."
GI Partners previous acquisitions included the Univision Tower at 2323 Bryan Street in Dallas and the telecom building at 36 NE 2nd Street in Miami, which were bought in early 2002 for about $40 million. It also owns Camperdown House, a 63,500 square foot London data center housing Level 3.
Although it has spent more than $318 million acquiring technology properties in the past year, GI Partners is still shopping. The fund was launched in March 2001 with a total of $526 million of capital from CalPERS and CBRE Investors.
"We're definitely in the market for well-positioned opportunities," said Foust. While Global Innovations' acquisitions have focused on buildings with tenants, Foust said his firm is also considering vacant data centers that have been built to high standards.
An example is the Denver site previously occupied by Relera, which Foust says will be attractive to large corporations seeking sites for hosting, disaster recovery or back office operations.
"There's some pent-up demand for data center expansion by corporate users that may bring more activity in 2003 and 2004," said Foust. "We're seeing more interest from corporate users than we've seen before."
Global Innovation Partners is an international private equity fund which invests in telecom- and technology-related real estate as well as later-stage private equity investments.