Ubiquity Will Convert Sears Auto Centers into Data Centers

One of America’s retail pioneers now hopes to build a new brand for the new economy, housing servers where it once changed your oil.

Ubiquity Critical Environments, the data center unit of Sears Holdings, plans to build a national chain of IT facilities by converting dozens of Sears Auto Center stores into data centers. It is partnering with Schneider Electric, a leading provider of data center equipment and services, to build and operate a fleet of mission-critical facilities in at least 23 markets around the country.

“We really want to be the McDonald’s or Starbucks of data centers,” said Sean Farney, the chief operating officer of Ubiquity. “No one’s ever done a national chain of data centers with a consistent design and brand. We’re going big on this one.”

The announcement marks an evolution of Ubiquity’s mission to repurpose Sears’ real estate holdings to capitalize on demand for data centers. Ubiquity was created by Sears to convert the retail icons of the 20th century into Internet infrastructure to power the 21st century digital economy. Farney initially explored converting old Sears and Kmart retail stores and warehouses into huge data centers. But it turned out that many of the most promising facilities were located near existing data center hubs, where Ubiquity would compete with existing providers.

Smaller Footprints, Secondary Markets

Instead, Ubiquity has shifted its focus to smaller footprints in secondary markets. Farney says the Sears Auto Centers are ideal for this strategy, especially the dozens of stand-alone centers.

“We have a unique asset, which is a lot of real estate that’s permitted and zoned so we can move quickly,” said Farney. “We’ve got this fleet of 700 of these auto center buildings, set out at the outer ring of the mall.”

The data center initiative also provides Sears with a strategy for its fleet of Sears Auto Centers. On Oct. 29, Sears said it would evaluate “strategic alternatives” for the auto centers, saying they offer “a unique national footprint that can be leveraged to create significant value.” This was widely assumed to mean a sale or spinoff of the auto center business.

A Showcase for Schneider

Ubiquity’s plan also presents a huge opportunity for Schneider Electric, which in recent years has been expanding its portfolio of services to address virtually every aspect of the data center business. Schneider will design, build, maintain and operate the data centers, which will be co-branded and jointly marketed by Ubiquity and Schneider. Each Ubiquity data center’s branding will feature the motto “Efficient Data Centers: Powered and Operated by Schneider Electric.”

“We’re bringing together many pieces to create a broader solution,” said Mike Hagan, vice president of Schneider’s Data Center Service Provider division. “We provided a fast way for Ubiquity to find all the resources they needed in a single partner. We can enter any space Ubiquity is targeting and add data center capacity in a modular fashion. This is not anything that’s new to us. We’re capable of engineering to any unique requirements.”

Those capabilities were recently on display in a project in Seattle in which Schneider converted office space at Fisher Plaza into an 11,000 square foot data center for Tierpoint, including a seismic isolation system.

Why Auto Centers?

Farney believes the Sears Auto Centers provide a winning template for a national chain of data centers. While some auto centers are attached to mall-based retail stores, about 50 of them are stand-alone facilities, often located on the perimeter of shopping malls. These sites are typically concrete buildings of between 25,000 and 50,000 square feet, with ceiling heights of at least 16 feet.

Ubiquity plans to convert a number of these sites into data centers offering between 1.2 megawatts and 2.4 megawatts of IT capacity on a 10,000 square foot raised floor environment. The facilities will be engineered for at least 150 watts per square foot, supporting cabinets using 3kW to 10kW of power. Ubiquity and Schneider expect to build the data centers to meet Tier III standards and operate with high levels of energy efficiency, targeting a Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.3.