US Signal plans new data center in Southeast Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS — Information technology provider US Signal Co. LLC plans to develop a new data center near Detroit.

Targeted to open in the fourth quarter in 2019 in Van Buren Township, the 100,000-square-foot data center will be the Grand Rapids-based US Signal’s fourth in Michigan and eighth in the Midwest.

The company is running out of room at an existing data center in Southfield as clients increasingly opt for off-site or cloud-based data storage run by outside I.T. service providers.

“That’s mainly due to a very large push by a current and future customer base to get out of running their own data centers, get out of worrying about the facilities and the electric power and the up time, and a lot of the nuances of that so they can focus on their core business,” said Dave Wisz, executive vice president of operations at US Signal.

US Signal also operates about 14,000 mile of optic fiber in 10 states. The company employs about 200 people and has clients nationwide, about 70 percent of which are based in the Midwest.

The company declined to say how much of an investment the new data center represents for US Signal, other than “it is a large investment and definitely reiterates our continued investment in the state of Michigan an economic growth in the state,” said Amanda Regnerus, executive vice president of marketing and product development at US Signal.

In addition to the four Michigan facilities, including two in the Grand Rapids area, plus Southfield, US Signal has data centers Oakbrook, Ill., Madison, Wis., and Indianapolis and South Bend, Ind. Data centers are at least 200 miles apart and operate on separate power grids to minimize potential disruptions from natural disasters.