KEY FACTS

Location: Secaucus, NJ

Type: Data Center Decommissioning and building gutting

Scope: Remove generators, disconnect electrical, remove huge glycol system, tear out the whole data center, remove inside brick partition walls. Make the space ready to build out.

Duration: 6 weeks

Client: CPR

In 1988 Viacom built a 107,000 square foot data center facility in Secaucus NJ.  Eventually the building was purchased by CPR, a real estate investment company, who hired Quantum Technology to gut the data center and bring the building back to a point where it could be repurposed and re-leased.  Quantum claimed we could do the job for free and use the assets to pay for the labor, trucking, warehousing, rentals, machinery, admin time, insurances, etc. and make a profit.  Chesky, the owner, said afterwards (loosely quoting).. “you have a great talent where you can turn almost anything into money. I don’t know how you do it. I know how to buy properties and turn leases and sales into money. But I would love to learn how to do what you do.”  Chesky’s terrific, and a good friend.  We did 3 more projects for him after that, hopefully more to come.

Project details:
We brought in our electricians to trace all of the wiring. It was a 4 day job. Viacom had layered and layered the wiring over a number of years and we weren’t able to find any blueprints. This is sometimes the case with older data centers. Once we had the wiring mapped out we were able to do the disconnects. We could have brought in a glycol tanker to pull the glycol out of the building, but instead we drained it into 255 gallon totes for refining and reselling. Our crew tore out the entire data center, including floors, ceiling, piping, cabling, equipment. Everything was resold or recycled. We sold 3 generators from the property. Two of them were 13,200v Caterpillar generators that we sold to a cement company, along with the medium voltage switchgear and controls. We had to open up the side of the building to remove them. We drained the underground tank, and did all of the research to have the tank dug up and certified removed. The crew removed glass partition walls and drywall, including brick walls. We subcontracted with a company to re-pipe the air handlers of the building. A previous vendor had taken a generator on the side of the building, but left the base tank and enclosure. We could not find a home for them, so we cut them up and scrapped them as metal. All the dry coolers were resold, as well as the many UPS’s, switchgear, cabinets, and other data center related items.

Visit our Data Center Decommissioning Page for a step-by-step guide.