The former Le Nature's water bottling plant in south Phoenix has been leased by i/o Data Centers, a growing Phoenix company I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The 500,000 square foot bottling plant was an award winning state-of-the-art facility when opened several years ago. It was purchased by CB Richard Ellis Investors, an ownership group led by CBRE, in 2006 and leased to Le Nature's. Le Nature's subsequently went bankrupt in 2006 amid charges of embezzlement and fraud by top executives, closed the Phoenix plant and CBRE had been been looking for a new tenant ever since. I have driven by the plant often and it is quite an impressive facility. I'm sure i/o will be a welcome addition for the City of Phoenix (and will help temper those rising vacancy rates I just wrote about).
i/o will use the additional space to expand its data storage and management operations. The expansion is being made possible by a $56 million venture investment from Sterling Partners in Chicago. The full article from the Arizona Republic can be read here.
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