Vacant office complex could become site of first data center in Rolling Meadows. This office building south of the Jane Addams Tollway and east of Route 53 in Rolling Meadows is set to meet the wrecking ball and be redeveloped with a three-story data center and electrical substation. (John Starks/Daily Herald) Posted November 11, 2026 6:42 pm A prominent yet long-vacant Rolling Meadows corporate office center is set to be demolished to make way for a data center, in what would be the city's first of the increasingly controversial computer storage sites. Austin, Texas-based data center developer Digital Realty's plans call for a three-story brick and masonry building housing 156 megawatts of critical power, which would be supplied by a two-story, 240-megawatt ComEd substation, at 3800 Golf Road. In September, Digital Realty purchased the 40-acre Atrium Corporate Centre - at the confluence of the Jane Addams Tollway and Route 53 - for $81.5 million from Rosemont-based Brennan Investment Group. Brennan, developer of the nearby 85-acre Elk Grove Technology Park, had proposed data centers among a variety of uses at the 40-acre Atrium site, including manufacturing and distribution. But Brennan was able to flip the property for a handsome return after buying it out of foreclosure for $27 million in 2023. So far, the kind of public opposition to data centers seen elsewhere hasn't surfaced in Rolling Meadows. The city council nearly a year ago quietly approved zoning code changes that allow data centers at that location, which is zoned for manufacturing. While the data center itself is entitled by right, the council Tuesday night took first steps toward granting other zoning relief needed for the redevelopment. That includes creating a plat for the substation on a 4.6-acre lot on the north side of the property, and a 35.3-acre lot for the data center on the south side. A special use permit for utilities is also needed for the substation. The unanimous, preliminary vote - pending a final tally Nov. 24 - came via the council's consent agenda without discussion or public comment. Those actions were precipitated by other property owners along the corporate-heavy Golf Road corridor - including engine manufacturer Weichai America Corp. and insurance giant Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. - signing off on the release of a decades-old restrictive covenant that may have prohibited a data center in the area. City officials support the plan for economic development reasons, said Glen Cole, the assistant city manager and director of community development. "We have a number of these vacant or underperforming office campuses, and we need to put them into productive use. We've lost a lot of economic activity from them essentially being mothballed or worse," Cole said. "For a lot of reasons, we think that if you're going to build a data center, the site we have there at 3800 Golf makes a lot of sense." Fencing has been installed around the vacant Atrium Corporate Centre at 3800 Golf Road in Rolling Meadows ahead of its pending demolition. (John Starks/Daily Herald) Among them, according to Cole: the site is bordered by two major highways, a busy state road and commercial/industrial users, and there's no residential around. "It has a lot of strengths as far as where to responsibly site these facilities," Cole said. In their zoning application, Digital Realty officials noted city plans calling "for repurposing antiquated and obsolete properties and attracting emerging industries." "The city also found that data centers are similar in scale and infrastructure needs to other permitted (manufacturing) uses, but produce much less noise, traffic and emissions," Digital Realty officials wrote. The three-story, 485,000-square-foot office building - once the home of AT&T, 3Com, a Capital One call center, and where the Federal Aviation Administration inked a lease to relocate its regional headquarters before backing out amid the building's pending foreclosure - has struggled to remain fully occupied. After the 2023 acquisition, Brennan and city officials unveiled plans for a $100 million redevelopment with 600,000 square feet of industrial space across two buildings. But there never was a "clear path to power" to the site, Cole said, as transmission lines along the tollway were tapped out by other data center users in the Northwest suburbs. At the same time, ComEd was inundated with requests from speculative data center developers, but many "were not that serious," Cole said. He said ComEd now has a plan to deliver power there, and the developer had to post a letter of credit to ensure the infrastructure that is built is prepaid. Work on the project might not start until 2029, under a preliminary timeline. [email protected]

APAC real estate people in the news 2026-11-09. Bain-backed data centre company Bridge Data Centres has named a Bain Capital senior partner as its co-chief executive, with the appointment leading this week's look at personnel moves from around Asia Pacific's real estate industry. Also making the list is Brookfield's hiring of M&G's former Japan head to lead its Tokyo client business and Equinix's appointment of a Kyndryl executive to run its Malaysian operations. Singapore-based data centre company Bridge Data Centres, a Bain Capital portfolio company, has named Bain Capital senior partner Drew Chen as co-chief executive, effective 1 November, according to a press release by the company. Chen, a founding member of Bain's Asia Pacific private equity team and formerly a consultant at Bain & Company, will share the role with Eric Fan, who had been chief executive. Bain Capital's Jonathan Zhu said Chen played a pivotal role in building Bridge and its sister company ChinData. Former M&G Investments Japan head Manabu Fujita has joined Brookfield Asset Management, which confirmed a deal to buy Dentsu's Tokyo headquarters, as managing director and head of its global client group for Japan, according to Bloomberg. Fujita will expand the alternative asset manager's institutional client base in Japan and oversee Japanese client relationships for credit manager Oaktree Capital Management, which Brookfield has fully acquired. He ran M&G's Japanese business from mid-2023 after 15 years at Schroders, where he rose to head of sales, and earlier worked at Invesco and Nippon Life. Effendi Azmi Hashim has joined Nasdaq-listed data centre operator Equinix as managing director for Malaysia this month, according to a press release by the company. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Effendi spent three years as managing director for Malaysia and Indonesia at IT infrastructure services company Kyndryl, after almost 10 years as country manager and general manager at technology services company Cognizant. He succeeds Cheam Tat Inn, who is retiring from full-time operational leadership after leading Equinix in Malaysia since November 2023. Kouhei Ohno has joined data centre operator Digital Realty and will serve on secondment as chief operating officer of its Japanese joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation, MC Digital Realty, according to a LinkedIn post by Digital Realty's Asia Pacific head Serene Nah. Ohno spent 28 years at Japanese telecoms group KDDI, where he was a general manager, and served as deputy managing director of Telehouse Europe from 2017 to 2021. Nah said Christopher Han, who has been chief operating officer of MC Digital Realty, will move to Seoul as general manager for South Korea. Omar Slim will become head of Japan for MetLife Investment Management, the institutional asset manager of insurer MetLife, effective 1 December, according to a press release by the firm. Slim, who has moved from Singapore to Tokyo, remains co-head of Asia public fixed income and will become a representative director of the firm's Japanese entities. He joined the firm through its acquisition of PineBridge Investments, where he co-headed Asia fixed income and was chief executive of the Singapore business, after earlier roles at State Street Global Advisors and BNP Paribas. Lazard director Joyce Lo has become managing director and co-chief operating officer of APAC advisory at Lazard CL, the private capital advisory business Lazard launched this month after completing its acquisition of Campbell Lutyens, according to a LinkedIn post. Based in Singapore, Lo has covered real estate and infrastructure as Lazard's Asia Pacific real assets specialist since 2019. She previously worked in business development at Hong Kong-based real estate investment manager LimeTree Capital Partners. Logistics real estate manager ESR has appointed Roy Teo, chief executive of Singapore's SB Asset & Investment Management, as head of Southeast Asia from January, according to a press release by the company. Teo replaces Jai Mirpuri, who is moving to Frasers Property Industrial. Based in Singapore, he will oversee development, asset management and property management. Teo led Soilbuild Business Space REIT through a Blackstone-backed privatisation as chief executive of its manager, and earlier headed the logistics portfolio at the manager of Ascendas REIT. Darren Webb has stepped down as chief executive of Singapore-based data centre developer Evolution Data Centres, which he co-founded in 2021, according to a LinkedIn post last week. Webb said he is leaving the business entirely. Evolution, which partnered with Megawide on a Philippine data centre, has projects in Thailand and Vietnam. Webb previously ran the Singapore and Southeast Asian business of IO Data Centres and held roles at software company AntWorks and at Vodafone. If you know of other Asia real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please contact Mingtiandi here at Mingtiandi.