Powering the Future: How PR&A Supports the Rapidly Growing Data Center Industry
Powering the Future: How PR&A Supports the Rapidly Growing Data Center Industry
The demand for data centers is skyrocketing, fueled by advancements in AI, cloud computing, and digital transformation across industries. As this sector expands at an unprecedented pace, companies need reliable partners to navigate challenges like facility requirements, local infrastructure, sustainability goals, critical equipment, and operational efficiency.
By: Justin Lia | April 10, 2025.
The data center space has been exploding, and many are comparing it to the proliferation of the internet, the mainstreaming of PCs, or the integration of smartphones into almost all of the population. AI and some of the biggest tech companies in existence are at the center of this, driving the need to bring more computing power online to meet the needs of end users who are all trying to figure out “how AI fits” into their daily work and home lives. It’s really a very exciting time to be the most trusted building and construction advisory firm in our space.
There’s a catch… these aren’t your average buildings. They have a unique combination of extremely high importance factors and extremely high building system demands. As we move closer and closer to facilities that never experience downtime, the problem gets harder and harder to solve. Data centers meeting or exceeding the “five-9s”, or 99.999% uptime, are only permitted to have downtime of 5.25 minutes a year. That includes facility repairs, capital expenditure projects, and technology upgrades, which are coming at an ever accelerating pace.
Justin Lia: Co-President and Chief Growth Officer
How can this be accomplished? For starters, this is only possible in a predictive facility maintenance model, where problems are flagged and dealt with as early as possible…long before catastrophic failure could occur. Data centers have all but erased the line between “trade fixtures” and “base building systems” when it comes to performance. Failures are failures. Downtime is catastrophic. The data center, trade fixtures included, needs to run as one large machine. The initial step in this process is to have a line of sight to as many points of failure as possible. This is where extremely close oversight/documentation during construction, a very detailed building component inventory, building control systems, and building analytics come in. These steps facilitate a smooth handoff from the construction team to the operations team.
Let’s layer in the time value of money. The clients that need to bring these data centers online are looking for project completion in as short a period of time as possible. Frequently attempting to condense a traditional 36-month schedule into 12-18 months. For those of us who have grown up in construction, nothing happens instantly, regardless of budget. Equipment lead times, scarcity of skilled labor, breakdowns in communication between stakeholders, and the complexities of securing enormous amounts of redundant power and communications bandwidth are all just standard fare for one of these projects.
Due to a strong imbalance between supply and demand, many predict this trend will run for at least ten years. Time will tell if they are right. What we are certain of is that the sector is exploding, the complexity is massive, the returns are too good to ignore, and PR&A is ready to help our clients figure it all out.
Data Center Lifecycle Support
Our experience throughout the lifecycle of thousands of real estate assets allows us to better serve our clients; providing actionable consulting services that result in real value for investors and operators.
Acquisition
Assessments and due diligence for acquisitions.
Asset Management
Capital assessments & planning, project oversight, and other services for owned assets.
Disposition & Recapitalization
Assessments to understand risks and condition of assets, prior to disposition or recapitalization.
Development Due Diligence
Construction drawing, document, budget review and other services for development projects.
Construction Oversight
Oversight of quality, schedule, payments, budgets, and contract procedures.
Data Center Services
Property Condition Assessments by experienced professionals with a broad knowledge of all building systems. Our assessments are defined by:
- Timely execution for due diligence schedules.
- Thorough field engineering and document analysis.
- Detailed and reliable opinions of cost.
- Comprehensive reporting and photographs.
Development consulting services rooted in engineering & architectural principles; with services that span the project lifecycle:
- Site & Development Feasibility Analysis
- Comprehensive Document and Design Review.
- Construction Monitoring, Oversight, and Draw Review.
- Close-Out Reporting and Warranty Inspections
As consulting engineers and architects, we apply the appropriate disciplines necessary to assess, design, and restore or enhance owned-assets and building systems. This includes:
- Planned Capital Projects
- Tenant Improvements
- Emergency Repairs & Insurance Claim Oversight
- Sustainability & Resilience & Building Optimization projects.
Seasoned engineers and architects with experience addressing unique challenges and specialized building systems and an institutional network of established specialty subconsultants for every building system and assessment type.
- Assessments for all building systems.
- Actionable recommendations.
- Extensive and high quality specialist network.
Sustainability, risk, and resilience assessments integrated with our development consulting, asset management, and property condition assessment services. This approach enables stakeholders to explore sustainable and risk-adverse initiatives during investment evaluations and during capital project assessments. This includes:
- Sustainability and efficiency assessments for acquisitions, developments, and owned assets.
- Climate Risk & Resilience assessments for asset managers, risk managers and ESG+R leadership.
Recent Projects
Data Center Design and Construction Considerations
Data Center Facilities Management
- Power Availability
- Cooling System Efficiency
- Energy Efficiency
- Space Utilization
- Asset Lifecycle Management
- Maintenance Compliance
- Incident Response Time
- Environmental Conditions Monitoring
- Safety Compliance
- Energy Cost per kW
- Generator and UPS Reliability
- Environmental Sustainability
- Water Usage Efficiency (WUE)
- Capacity Management
- Vendor Performance
Data Center Facilities Management KPIs focus on the operational aspects of maintaining a data center's physical infrastructure. These KPIs help ensure that the data center environment is reliable, efficient, and capable of supporting IT operations.
Data Center Infrastructure
- Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
- Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE)
- Cooling Efficiency
- Server Utilization
- Rack Density
- Capacity Utilization
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
- Energy Consumption per Server
- Environmental Monitoring
- IT Load Growth
- Asset Lifecycle Management
- Carbon Footprint Incident Rate
DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) involves managing and optimizing the physical and logical infrastructure of data center. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for DCIM help assess the efficiency, performance, and reliability of data center operations.
Data Center Critical Equipment
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Systems
- Power Distribution Units (PDUs) & Backup Generators
- Cooling Systems (CRAC/CRAH Units) & Chillers
- Server Racks
- Environmental Monitoring Systems
- Network Switches and Routers
- Storage Systems & Security Systems
- Cable Management Systems
- Automated Transfer Switches (ATS)
- Fire Suppression Systems Power Generators
- Battery Banks
- Airflow Management Systems
- Building Management System (BMS)
- Power Transformers
- DCIM Software (Data Center Infrastructure Management)
- Emergency Lighting System
A Data Center (DC) relies on various critical equipment to ensure the continuous operation and reliability of its IT infrastructure.
Discover the Impact of Our Work
Browse Our Website to Understand How Our Expertise Translates into Successful Outcomes for Our Clients.
Explore Now
Discover the Impact of Our Work
Browse Our Website to Understand How Our Expertise Translates into Successful Outcomes for Our Clients.
Explore Now