Novva Data Centers is expanding into California with a new planned campus in San Francisco.
The company last week announced the acquisition of a 7.5-acre campus comprised of several buildings located in South San Francisco.
Novva plans to invest $500 million in developing a 28MW campus on the site at 400 Paul Avenue, with the first 9MW launching in the summer of 2026.
Novva's CEO Wes Swenson said: "This will be one of the greenest data centers ever created in the area and represents a very rare opportunity for clients to locate intelligent computing in one of the most important cities for software and hardware development in the world."
The data center facility will total 182,000 sq ft (16,900 sqm) across two floors, and a 56,000 sq ft office and operations support center. The site will include a direct-to-chip cooling loop.
The company said the N+1 site will feature Novva's proprietary electrical delivery system – which includes no centralized infrastructure for resiliency – along with a water-free air-cooling system, sodium ion UPS batteries, and HVO for its backup generators.
400 Paul is located next to 200 Paul, a Digital Realty-owned carrier hotel and previously described as the first new purpose-built facility in San Francisco for a decade.
Plans for a data center at 400 Paul were first announced in 2017 as a joint project between Fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty (1547 CSR) and CIM Group. The companies bought the land from Cambay Group, completed in 2021, and made it available for lease last year.
The site was originally constructed in 1930 by the Link‐Belt Company, which purchased the property from the San Francisco Sulfur Company, and built its first West Coast manufacturing facility there.
In 1973, the Link Belt Company sold the property to Jerome and Jeanne Pothoff [later acquired by Sonoco Products], which used it for their packaging containers and manufacturing company, Tubes and Cores, until 2001. During the intervening years, parts of the site were used for a variety of uses including clothing manufacturing (the Eber Company) and automobile storage (Pat’s Garage) until the Cambay Group purchased the entire site in 2001.
Novva was launched in 2020 by former C7 CEO Wes Swenson with $95 million from CIM, initially with plans to develop a $1 billion hyperscale campus in West Jordan, Utah. The company opened the 300,000 square foot (28,000 sqm) first phase of that campus late last year, and targets growing the facility to 1.5 million sq ft (140,000 sq m) over four phases.
The company has since acquired a 6MW facility in Colorado Springs and announced plans to expand it to 30MW for $200 million. 2022 also saw Novva announce plans for a 275,000 square foot (25,550 sqm), 100MW data center in Las Vegas.
Earlier this year the company announced plans for a 60MW data center in Reno, Nevada that is set to open in 2024. The company also recently acquired land in Mesa, Arizona for another campus.
