CIT Group Inc. announced that CIT Communications & Technology Finance served as Sole Lead Arranger and Administrative Agent for a $68.5 million senior secured credit facility provided to T5@Kings Mountain VII, LLC, an affiliate of a joint venture of T5 Data Centers, LLC and Iron Point Partners, LLC. T5 Data Centers is an established national data center provider that focuses on building data centers in the best markets for business. The facility will be used to finance the construction of a 127,000-square-foot data center in the Charlotte, North Carolina suburb of Kings Mountain. Financing was provided by CIT Bank, N.A., the principal bank subsidiary of CIT. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“The new Kings Mountain data center will be located in T5@Kings Mountain, an established 280-acre data center park that has a dedicated 180mw substation, redundant water supply, and local and long-haul fiber connectivity from several major providers,” said Pete Marin, President & CEO of T5 Data Centers. “Having recently worked with CIT, we knew that they had a deep and insightful understanding of the data center market and would be the ideal financing partner for this transaction.”
“We are pleased to have an opportunity to support T5 and Iron Point on another build-to-suit data center project after successfully financing the data center construction of T5@Portland last year,” said Tom Westdyk, Group Head and Managing Director, CIT Communications & Technology Finance. “T5 consistently delivers excellent operating results to their many high-profile clients. All of T5’s data center projects feature robust design, redundant and reliable power and telecommunications, and a 24-hour staff to support mission-critical computing applications.”
Joe Junda, Managing Director, CIT Communications & Technology Finance, added, “The combination of favorable tax incentives, low power costs, dependable access to power, abundant fiber connectivity and a strong base of corporate headquarters position Charlotte as a viable location in the data center market. T5 Data Centers is a leading and experienced national data center owner and operator with a quality management team. It was a pleasure to work with them and provide the necessary funding required to execute this project. CIT’s knowledge and long-term commitment to lending in the data center sector allowed us to successfully lead this transaction.”
T5 builds, owns and operates server-ready single and multi-tenant data centers across North America to meet the demands of today’s corporate users. The company provides customers with proven, state-of-the-art data centers in a scalable format that are built, maintained and operated to ensure that mission critical applications keep running.
Founded in 2007, Iron Point has raised more than $2.0 billion in total equity commitments to its private equity funds. It has made investments across most commercial real estate property types, including specialty real estate asset classes, such as data centers, senior living facilities and low-income, multi-housing properties. The firm also invests in numerous distressed and other “special situation” investment opportunities.