Mark Towfiq, a local entrepreneur who’s cashed out twice after growing and selling data centers, is getting back in the storage business.
The founder and chief executive of Irvine startup NextFort Venture LLC is drafting the final details of a 180,000-square-foot data center outside Phoenix that will put a new spin on an old model.
The “modular” data center, set to open in the coming months, has 23-foot concrete walls surrounding the perimeter of the property. Rows of bunkers within house concrete steal suites measuring 10 feet high, 10 feet deep and 40 feet long. Up to 20 high-density storage racks can be slotted in each suite.
The suites are essentially a data center within a data center. They’re designed to prevent fires, floods or power failures from spreading from one suite to another.
“It’s like a prison—it’s super secure,” Towfiq said. “They are completely isolated from one another.”
Google Inc.’s data centers, comprised of linked shipping containers, provided some inspiration for the modular design, Towfiq said.
The Iranian-born immigrant made his first fortune in Orange County in 1999 when he sold InteleNet Communications Inc. to Denver-based FirstWorld Communications Inc. for about $20 million.
He had launched Irvine-based Intelnet in 1994 with former colleagues from Rockwell International and Unocal Corp., growing it past $10 million in sales and 50 employees.
After the tech bubble burst, Towfiq bought the company back in 2002 for “pennies on the dollar” before FirstWorld filed for bankruptcy.
He grew the company over the next five years into a data center, eclipsing $20 million in annual sales at its 50,000-square-foot operation on Von Karman Avenue near John Wayne Airport.
He sold the company again, this time to then-Managed Data Holdings of Denver in 2007, when valuations peaked before the onset of the recession.
Two years later Managed Data Holdings changed its name to Latisys, which now is the largest data center operator in Orange County, with nearly 100,000 square feet of space in two Irvine buildings.
Towfiq and a small group of private investors have poured more than $20 million into the land, construction and the first 25 suites at NextFort in Phoenix.
“It looks like we have good demand,” Towfiq said.
NextFort has inked deals with four tenants, including a Japanese cloud service provider, an international company with U.S. operations based in OC, and a local company in Phoenix, he said.
Data centers are a growth sector in high demand amid an explosion of data storage and computing fueled by streaming content, cloud services, social media and mobile devices.
Differs From Most
NextFort’s data centers differ from most competitors, which typically pump air conditioning through raised floors into large areas that hold servers and racks for multiple clients.
NextFort’s version has meters for each of the units, and tenants pay their own utility bills.
It has up to four cooling units on top of each rack in an individual suite.
The system can funnel outside air, cool it down and redistribute it throughout the room. The system can direct the cooled air to machines that need it and skip others, cutting down energy costs for the data center and tenant. That also makes billing for energy use more predictable, according to the company.
Traditional compressors will kick in when temperatures rise to triple digits, which is common in the summer months in the Phoenix area.
Tenants can control temperature and view live footage of their suite remotely.
NextFort’s data center is in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, near much larger ones run by San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust Inc., which has more than 293,000 square feet of space, and Houston-based CyrusOne LLC, which broke ground last year on a 57-acre campus slated to house 1 million square feet of space when the multiyear project concludes.
“I think it’s good for everybody,” Towfiq said. “We’re the low-cost provider.”
NextFort doesn’t plan to lease or sell equipment like other competitors.
“We’re focusing purely on infrastructure,” Towfiq said.
The arid climate and desert environment of the Phoenix area is an ideal location for the data center since the region is relatively low-risk for natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods, Towfiq said.
Relatively cheap land and low costs of starting a business also help, he said.
NextFort is eyeing locations in Texas and other Southwest states to establish two more data centers later this year.
