Baltimore Technology Park expanding 

Posted: 7:22 pm Tue, March 9, 2010
By Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer

Baltimore Technology Park, a data security company headquartered in South Baltimore, is launching a $5 million expansion that will build some of the most expensive commercial space, on a per-square-foot basis, in the city.

The first phase of the expansion, a 3,000-square-foot “data room,” will cost about $1,700 per square foot, and is expected to open in April. A later phase will add another 4,000 square feet of data storage space to the Russell Street facility and is expected to cost millions more.

Jim Weller, president of BTP, said the reason the space is so expensive to build is because the company provides “IT infrastructure” for its clients, not just tech support. This means that the facility has climate control systems, fully redundant communications systems so that the building never loses its Internet hook-up, and massive batteries and a diesel-powered generator that can keep the site in electricity for up to 48 hours in the event of a blackout.

“We’re housing critical IT equipment for clients. Our whole business revolves around having a specialized building here to have the IT infrastructure we need,” Weller said. “It hits the customer at different times when they realize that their applications are too critical to keep in their closet in their office.”

The hallways of BTP’s data rooms are lined with dozens of solid-looking black metal cases, each filled with up to 40 servers storing networked information for law firms, marketing companies, universities and other clients.

One large section of the company’s second data room, a 5,000-square-foot area that was added two years ago, houses data storage units for a client that Weller would not name, but which he described as Baltimore’s largest law firm (DLA Piper is the city’s largest by number of employees).

Other clients of BTP include Hanover’s Convergence Marketing, and a client that BTP described as the largest university in Baltimore, which, by various measures, could be either the Johns Hopkins University or the University of Maryland.

The expansion of BTP’s facility will be funded by the company, which is owned by Tom Cunningham, CEO of Baltimore-based Web-hosting company Alabanza Corp. His investment will expand a building that sits in an area of the city, south of Baltimore’s professional sports stadiums, that has been the subject of much attention in the last year.

The former site of the Maryland Chemical Co., about 100 feet away on Russell Street, has been cleared to make way for a slots casino for which the state has yet to find a viable developer.

Across the street from BTP sits Second Chance, an architectural salvage store whose warehouses were condemned to make way for Gateway South, an office and sports complex project that was proposed but never came to fruition.

Weller said he is not worried about the frequent turnover and politics that often come with building in the area.

“We’re pretty close with the city, with the Baltimore Development Corp. They see us as part of the revitalization of this area,” he said.