Kansas City (KC), Missouri, is the jazz and BBQ capital of the world and nicknamed “The Heart of America” since it is very near the geographical center of the United States. It was the first city in the world to get Google Fiber providing widespread access to a 1-gigabit network, positioning KC as a leader in high-speed connectivity and dubbed the Gigabit City. Midwest states, including Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas, are often called Silicon Prairie, a play on Silicon Valley. KC is the leading center for transportation, manufacturing, technology, and financial industries. It is also well-known for the Bryant Building at 1102 Grand, owned and operated by Netrality Data Centers.
The Bryant Building was initially designed as an office building in 1931 by the Chicago firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. It is one of the only two buildings designed by the firm, with the other being the former Federal Reserve Bank Building at 925 Grand. The cornerstone of the building holds the family records of Dr. John Bryant. Dr. Bryant and his wife received the land the building sits on as a wedding gift from her father in 1866. The original Bryant Building was built in 1891 at the corner of Petticoat Lane and Grand Boulevard before being demolished and rebuilt in 1931.
Photo Credits: Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
The building won the Kansas City Business League and the American Institute of Architects Chapter Awards in 1931. It is a distinctive example of Art Deco architecture in Kansas City and is listed on the National Historic Registry. The infrastructure is a steel frame with a concrete foundation. It sits on a three-story granite base and is erected using brick piers with recessed brown terra cotta spandrels between the piers, and decorative stylized reeds, with floral and geometric ornamentation.
In 2006, it was converted into a carrier hotel. Amerimar Enterprises, Inc., a real estate, investment, and management firm, entered the wired real estate market by acquiring the colocated data center in 2012. Amerimar was re-branded to Netrality Properties in 2015 and now goes by Netrality Data Centers. 1102 Grand is one of the fastest-growing telecommunication hubs in the Midwest, with immediate access to the Axon ring, the fiber optic loop connecting the Johnson County area of the Kansas City Metro with downtown Kansas City.
In 2020, Netrality announced its completion of renovations and infrastructure upgrades to 1102 Grand, which included increasing primary power and backup power generation and creating new fiber, rack space, cabinets, and meet-me-rooms (MMRs).
In 2021, Netrality acquired KC2-7801 Nieman Road in Shawnee, Kansas. KC2-7801 Nieman Road was purchased to accommodate customers increasing capacity demands for edge and wholesale deployments. The 10-mile distance between 1102 Grand and KC2-7801 Nieman Road allows for one millisecond round trip latency for active-active replication between the two data centers, offering KC2-7801 Nieman Road customers access to 1102 Grand’s rich connectivity ecosystem, including direct on-ramps to Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect. 1102 Grand is the only data center in Kansas City with a Google Cloud Direct Connect that provides direct physical connections between on-prem and Google’s networks.
The energy star facility at KC2-7801 Nieman is the first purpose-built data center that Netrality acquired. It spans 172,000 square feet with 2 megawatts capacity currently available. An additional megawatt will be delivered during Netrality’s first phase of development, to be completed by June 2023, followed by another 3 megawatts during phase two. In 2021, the Shawnee City Council approved the issuance of $56.2M of Federally Taxable Private Activity Revenue Bonds for the development and renovation of our facility. Additionally, in January of this year, Netrality secured a $45 million construction loan to support sustainability enhancements focused on energy efficiency and water conservation.
1102 Grand has 26 stories with over 157,000 square feet of space. We have a reliable N + 1 setup for our generator plant, 3 primary generators, and a swing generator, which supports our three utility services from two different power substations. Each generator provides up to 2 megawatts of power and has its own dedicated 2,800-gallon diesel storage tank. Our generators are able to run for 24 hours at full capacity without refueling. Netrality has both local and national fuel contracts in place to ensure backup power.
1102 Grand is the most network-rich core interconnection environment in the Central Midwest due to its geographic presence in the center of the telecommunications right of way in the United States. Our robust ecosystem comprises +140 IT service providers, including carriers, cloud providers, cloud delivery networks, cloud service providers, and managed service providers. 1102 Grand and KC2-7801 Nieman Road are tethered, allowing our customers to utilize providers in both facilities. A few of our 1102 Grand and KC2-7801 Nieman partners in our ecosystem include Akamai, Arelion, Bluebird Network, Cloudflare, Dish Wireless, Google Fiber, Zayo, and PCW Console Connect. Our facility at 1102 Grand offers office space, secure storage, and a tech lounge. Interested in learning more about 1102 Grand or KC2-7801 Nieman? Contact us today!