WēConnect® Community Data Center Open for Business

The nation’s first municipal community data center has officially opened in our back yard. The WēConnect® community data center, five years in the making, began as a vision to bring the technology of the future to the City of Westerville.

The center serves as a connectivity hub – or data hotel of sorts – for local and regional business, offering world-class support for cloud computing, co-location, broadband services and server rack space and security. A carrier-neutral facility, the data center provides businesses of all sizes access to the most advanced technologies so that they can thrive locally but compete globally.

“The City has invested in a fiber backbone that spans the circumference of our corporate limits, and the data center is the physical building that makes Westerville a truly progressive community,” said Chief Information Officer Todd Jackson. “It’s by choice, not chance, that Westerville can offer access to advanced infrastructure that supports our community partners and businesses.”

Construction on the 16,000-square-foot facility was completed last November, with the first business moving into space last December to take advantage of a suite of services designed to help local businesses grow. And by allowing businesses to offer their own services through the data center, Westerville plans to attract new business to the community. It is part of the program meant to provide an edge to Westerville’s economic development efforts and bring or keep jobs in the community.

“This is an opportunity for businesses to have advantages to grow without increasing capital costs,” said Jason Bechtold, Westerville’s Economic Development Administrator. “What they save in time and money gets reinvested back into their business and benefits the community as a whole.”

The data center is being managed by Data Recovery Services (DRS), a Youngstown-based technology firm. The unique relationship between DRS and Westerville maintains the Cityowned infrastructure (data center and fiber) while data center services are provided and managed by DRS and broadband services are provided by commercial carriers.

“We developed a model that leverages the strengths of both the public infrastructure and private service sectors in order to bring unmatched opportunities in both access and affordability,” said Jackson.

DRS, a regional provider of data center design and operation services, worked with the City since the beginning of the data center’s planning stages.

“We’re excited about leveraging an award-winning service platform combined with the innovative thinking that the City has embraced to make Westerville a technology destination for businesses,” said DRS CEO Mike Meloy.

In WēConnect®, Westerville has created a distinctive attraction that should appeal to businesses looking to start or looking to grow. “This is what we heard when we asked businesses what they needed in Westerville in order to be a worldclass destination for business,” said Jackson. “A community data center centralizes the technology, security and infrastructure within a technology commons, enabling businesses of all sizes in and around our community to reduce costs of doing business and compete on a global level.”

The WēConnect® community data center will be formally dedicated in February. For information on the date and other upcoming events, please visit www.westerville.org.