A 2016 report of a planned Microsoft data-center lease in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, marked a possible turning point for EdgeConneX: the company known for smaller facilities near network users appeared to be pursuing hyperscale work. The reported deal suggested a route into wholesale competition built around an anchor tenant—not proof that EdgeConneX had become a wholesale giant.
What the Chicago deal reportedly involved
On October 3, 2016, Data Center Knowledge reported that EdgeConneX had bought a former Prologis industrial building at 1800 Nicholas Road in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The approximately 132,000-square-foot property, built in 2005, reportedly sold for $22.8 million—slightly under $175 per square foot. The report said EdgeConneX had secured power to convert it for data-center use. Data Center Knowledge’s 2016 account attributed the real-estate details to public-record reporting.
The proposed tenant and capacity had a different evidentiary basis. A person familiar with the acquisition told the publication that the project was intended as a 25–30 MW build-to-suit facility leased to Microsoft. The article did not report a public Microsoft confirmation, and EdgeConneX had not responded to a request for comment by publication time. The report also did not specify whether the MW figure meant IT load, critical load, or another power measure.
- Reported property facts: acquisition, address, approximate building size, and purchase price, attributed to public-record reporting.
- Source-described plan: a 25–30 MW Microsoft build-to-suit, attributed to an unnamed person familiar with the transaction.
- Not established by that report: final delivered capacity, lease term, deal value, or the facility’s exact use within Microsoft’s infrastructure.
Why a Microsoft anchor mattered to EdgeConneX
EdgeConneX said it entered new markets only when it had an anchor tenant, and that it built around customer requirements rather than putting up massive speculative campuses and waiting for tenants. A hyperscale customer could provide the predictable demand needed to justify a large, site-specific investment. A committed customer can also make financing and phased delivery easier to plan, although it does not eliminate construction, power, or lease-up risk.
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For EdgeConneX, a Microsoft-sized tenant would have been more than a large lease. It could demonstrate that the company could deliver the power, facility design, and operational requirements of a major cloud provider—and offer a reference point for winning similar work. The trade-off is concentration: a build designed around one anchor may be exposed if that customer delays, changes its plans, or negotiates aggressively over price and expansion rights.
How wholesale data centers differ from edge sites
Wholesale describes a commercial model: a provider leases large blocks of powered space, data-hall capacity, or an entire dedicated facility to a customer. Hyperscale describes the scale of the customer or workload, not the lease format. The terms overlap in deals like the one reported in Chicago, but they are not interchangeable.
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Wholesale projects call for substantial power, land, capital, and reliable delivery schedules. Providers compete on those fundamentals as well as connectivity, expansion options, and speed to market. In 2016, the article identified Digital Realty Trust and DuPont Fabros Technology as established wholesale-oriented competitors. That comparison placed EdgeConneX in the competitive arena; it did not show that the company matched those providers in portfolio scale, financing resources, public-market access, or geographic reach.
EdgeConneX’s edge-focused starting point
Before the reported Microsoft deal, EdgeConneX’s model centered on smaller facilities in secondary markets, positioned near users and network demand. The 2016 account described about two dozen facilities built over roughly two years. Typical sites were around 2 MW, with room to expand by another 2 MW or more depending on local requirements. Customers included cable companies, content providers, networks, IT service providers, and cloud-related users; facilities could serve as access points for content delivery and public-cloud connectivity.
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A later retrospective described the company’s evolution in overlapping waves rather than as a clean break: facilities for cached content near consumers from 2013–2015, hyperscale facilities bringing cloud capacity closer to network edges in 2016–2017, and later MicroEdge sites aimed at highly distributed, low-latency applications. That history supports a broader interpretation: EdgeConneX expanded across different facility scales instead of abandoning edge infrastructure. The retrospective also reported 222 MicroEdge data centers in 2019 and described later hyperscale facilities ranging from 4 MW to above 16 MW.
Chicago appeared to be part of a wider expansion
The 2016 coverage also described a large-scale Amsterdam project and mega-scale projects in Dublin and London. It linked Microsoft to Amsterdam and Dublin in part through a person familiar with those transactions, rather than through a comprehensive public, facility-by-facility announcement. The article suggested that the Chicago, Amsterdam, and Dublin deals might have been negotiated around the same time. These reports pointed toward a broader strategy, but the sourcing does not establish every tenant relationship or project detail as publicly confirmed.
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The timing fit Microsoft’s European cloud expansion. The 2016 account described investment in Ireland and the Netherlands, plans for France, and approximately $3 billion spent on European operations to that point. It placed EdgeConneX’s opportunity within a broader cloud-capacity race involving Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Those are historical descriptions of the 2016 market, not a statement about Microsoft’s present-day footprint.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the strategy offered—and what it risked
Why an anchor-led build could work
- Less speculative vacancy exposure: pre-committed demand can reduce the risk of opening a large facility without a tenant.
- Customer-specific design: power, cooling, security, connectivity, and phasing can be tailored to a large customer’s requirements.
- Potentially faster market entry: converting an existing industrial property may offer a different path from developing a greenfield campus, though conversion still requires substantial construction and commissioning.
- A differentiated site pipeline: experience in secondary markets could help identify real estate and power opportunities that larger operators might overlook.
What it could not remove
- Power and delivery risk: securing power is not the same as delivering energized, commissioned capacity on schedule.
- Capital intensity: a 25–30 MW-class project entails commitments far larger than a typical small edge facility.
- Customer leverage: hyperscalers can negotiate hard on price, milestones, and future capacity.
- Scale limits: one large project, even with a leading cloud tenant, does not create parity with global wholesale operators.
- Disclosure limits: private data-center providers and cloud companies may not identify exact locations, tenants, or lease terms publicly.
A facility built for a hyperscaler is not necessarily owned or operated by that hyperscaler. Nor does a reported Microsoft lease prove that the site was a conventional Azure public-cloud region; it could have supported dedicated cloud infrastructure, an availability-zone component, or another part of Microsoft’s operations.
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What EdgeConneX’s current materials show
As of August 2026, EdgeConneX markets services spanning hyperlocal, hyperscale, build-to-suit, campus, high-density, and edge data centers. Its data-center solutions page describes that range, while its global locations page lists Chicago with 4 MW delivered in March 2024 and 19.2 MW under development. The location listing does not identify Microsoft as the tenant. Those figures therefore cannot be treated as proof that the 2016 Elk Grove project was delivered at the reported 25–30 MW specification.
EdgeConneX’s homepage also markets a global footprint of 90-plus data centers, 60-plus unique markets, four continents, and more than 20 countries. These are company-reported figures presented on its current site, not independently established measures of capacity or competitive parity. EdgeConneX’s homepage is the source for those company claims.
What the Microsoft report ultimately meant
The Chicago story was a credible sign that EdgeConneX was pursuing large, customer-anchored projects alongside its edge business. The reported Microsoft relationship showed how an anchor-tenant model might open the door to wholesale-scale work without relying solely on speculative development. It did not establish a publicly confirmed lease, prove the project’s final capacity, or make EdgeConneX equivalent to the wholesale incumbents named in 2016.
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