10 ms·
Sears is Turning Shuttered Stores into Data Centers
- josephb 13y agoGood use of the sites.
- ManAboutCouch 13y agoNot quite retail, but Amazon's main Data Centre in Dublin is the former main warehouse used by one of Ireland's largest retailers. It's gone from being full of beans and nappies to servers full of kitten gifs. http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/09/amazon-buys-dublin-site-for-data-center/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/09/amazo...
- bluedino 13y agoDon't forget Rackspace turned an abandoned mall into their HQ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/03/21/storming-the-castle-inside-rackspace.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/03/21/stormi...
- function_seven 13y agoAnd if anybody is looking for more photos, http://www.rackspace.com/blog/get-an-inside-look-at-the-rackspace-castle-via-google-street-view/ http://www.rackspace.com/blog/get-an-inside-look-at-the-rack...
- alberth 13y agoRackspace's corp HQ is a converted old mall (the entire mall) in San Antonio [1]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rackspace-revitalizes-a-defunct-mall-into-an-unorthodox-tech-campus.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rack...
- noonespecial 13y agoWild. I used to hang out at Windsor Park in the 80s. I still have a Rubiks Cube I bought there.
- powermeat 13y agoKatrina refugees put the last nail in the coffin at Windsor Park
- nlh 13y agoInteresting move -- feels like this is a natural response to the not-so-sudden realization by "normal" folks that you can get a BIG multiple on $/sqft as a data center over a more traditional tenant. A parking lot is better than an empty lot. A warehouse is better than a parking lot. And a data center is better than a warehouse :) The good news for us consumers is that as the supply steadily ticks up, pricing will come down (at least for space - who's to say where bandwidth costs go).
- fudged71 13y ago>A parking lot is better than an empty lot. Paving paradise, &c ;)
- maeon3 13y agoThis is an opportunity where they could usher in a new glorious era of personal cloud computing that solves the problem of the government basically owning your hardware, software, and the usage of your software if the government catches you (or the software) so much as jaywalk. Instead of selling floor space, they could subdivide the space like the "storage building" units. The customers could pay for a rack, and they would need a key to access it. Legally the hardware, software and data would be owned by the owner, and not the government. Anyone else would need a warrant to come in and rape your data, software, and hardware just like if the server was next to my bed. Part of the reason why I have all my servers in places I own is because of this problem. This is a brief opportunity to explore cloud computing and give the communists and socialists who want everyone to share a common purse on the computing front a black eye. My pain point is "I want boat loads of CPU cycles and Internet connection speeds, and I want physical legal ownership of the rack space, hardware, software, AND data, and I don't want to have to buy a building that I have to air condition, power, internet connect, secure, and pay taxes on.
- Retric 13y agoThere is a lot of odd precedence that makes renting small storage units not the same thing as larger units. Standalone Property > Multi Unit Property > Storage Space > Rented computers.
- nodata 13y agoThis is a brief opportunity to explore cloud computing and give the communists and socialists who want everyone to share a common purse on the computing front a black eye. Wow, where did that come from? Cloud computing is communist now? I could have sworn otherwise.
- maeon3 13y agohttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/caleatwo https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/caleatwo The government is going to get its backdoor into cloud computing platforms one way or the other, because of child porn, the terrorists, and corruption. The segmenting idea is a dumb one because we don't physically own the space, it isn't ours. People with wearable supercomputers on programmers who are able to understand the metal on up through the software and data will be only truly free citizens (free from government fiddling with and spying on everything they do). There will be precious few free independent citizens in the coming centuries. Most humans will become as one, where one human's consciousness will blur and blend into everyone else's. I will be one of the islands, choosing: "thanks, but I prefer you not have data injection, and fiddling rights with my own mind". The beginning of this blended and blurred consciousness and hive minds begins here, today, with cloud computing becoming owned by the government, and having your desktops, laptops, smartphones and interfaces with your own mind as thin-clients. Where you begin to think about a crime, and the others will say: "That is a bad idea" and stop you as you are doing the crime.
- makerops 13y agoNow, all they need to do is to turn all the ghostmalls into hackerspaces and we are on to something.
- dredmorbius 13y agoI think that's Makers: http://craphound.com/makers/ http://craphound.com/makers/ One of the few fiction books I've read in recent years that's bent my mind.
- makerops 13y agoWhere do you think I stole the idea from? Great book.
- dredmorbius 13y agoIt's a good enough book to make the association concrete. Agreed.
- voltagex_ 13y agoAnyone else reading this comment: http://craphound.com/makers/donate/ http://craphound.com/makers/donate/ (download the book for free, donate a copy to a school)
- kickingvegas 13y agoFirst thought that came to mind when I saw the OP. Wonder what the ROI is on using Sears retail as a data center vs a co-working/incubator space.
- telmnstr 13y agoDealing with the politics, aspy personalities, and payment issues with a small space is hard enough... I can't imagine it magnified to shopping mall proportions!
- mbesto 13y agoI'm not sure I understand this. Retail real estate is all about increasing footfall, not just the size of it. Hence why you see the airport bombarded with shopping nowadays. Unless there are particular Sears locations that don't see benefit from adjacent footfalling (just made that word up) retail outlets, then it makes sense. But then it wouldn't make sense for Sears to be there in the first place if the footfall opportunity wasn't there or couldn't be created there.
- xhrpost 13y agoTimes change, I've seen this locally. In the US Midwest, various metro areas have lost population over the last couple decades. As a result, they don't need as much retail space to support the current population. Something has to give. The Sears closest to me is attached to a condemned mall. Sears stays open because they own the building though. The reason they're there is because originally, the mall was the place to be for retail.
- sdfaf 13y agocould you tell us the location? I'm curious to see how a condemned mall looks like.
- muzz 13y agoI realize they have a building with lots of empty square footage, but how do they get enough power, bandwidth, cooling, etc? Data centers built by Google, Facebook, etc. seem to all be built from the ground up, and close to things like power plants.
- josefresco 13y agoAlso, wouldn't the premium of leasing or owning "retail" style property make the cost of maintaining the building too costly? I don't think Sears needs a datacenter on main street, or within a strip-mall. After RTFA I pulled this: "Farney acknowledges that many of Sears’ mall-based retail locations aren’t viable for data center usage. “I don’t think the industry is yet ready for a mall-based data center,” he said. “That may take some time. The stand-alone location is optimal.”" It seems they are considering it more for certain stand-alone locations.
- brudgers 13y agoThe real-estate deed for any mall location almost certainly precludes such uses by covenant. If they didn't, Sears would never have bought the property in the first place.
- walshemj 13y agoAnd it woudl be harder to secure you would find it hard to add a moat even adding a proper double fence might be hard in most of these store locations.
- enigmo 13y agoThey're not all built from the ground up: http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/hamina/ http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/ham...
- jmharvey 13y agoI'm a little surprised by this. The article implies that shuttered Sears stores already have the power and data capacity to function as a data center, but I can't imagine why. Compared to similar sized buildings (office buildings or factories, mostly), Sears retail locations don't seem to have a lot of power- or data-intensive needs. Sears does have some amazing infrastructure (lots of square footage, locations at key transportation points in densely populated areas throughout the country, huge parking lots) but those aren't really the kind of features that data centers are usually optimizing for. I'm sure they're finding creative uses for this infrastructure, but I doubt it's anything like a data center as we think of one.
- chmullig 13y agoIt's not whether it's already laid, but how easily it could be added.
- wikwocket 13y agoThe article mentions that the target locations are standalone buildings with good fiber and power already connected. They mention 5 megawatts for one location. I don't know why a Sears location would need lots of power (beyond tons of lights and powerful HVAC units), but I can see the need for quality and low-latency data: retail POS generates a large amount of transactional data, and you need low latency for database syncing and credit card/loyalty card transactions.
- protospork 13y ago> retail POS generates a large amount of transactional data, and you need low latency for database syncing and credit card/loyalty card transactions. I've always been curious about what sort of infrastructure the average big-box retail store actually needs. My local Walmart can't have anything but a wireless uplink, unless they actually installed 5+ miles of fiber or something when they built the store.
- barake 13y agoThis Quora answer gives a little insight in to the needs of a modern store: http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-new-instantaneous-payment-system-being-used-at-Target http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-new-instantaneous-payment-s... Also these stores basically couldn't exist without robust inventory management systems. There is probably more technology in the average big box than we realize.
- ceautery 13y agoBut will they be using all those CompuServe disks they never sold as hipster coasters? That's what I want to know.
- jgeorge 13y agoIt bothers me that the biggest issue I have with this article is that "blue light specials" were K-Mart, not Sears.
- patrickk 13y ago“Sears and Kmart never deployed wireless on the rooftops, so there’s no rooftop usage at present,” he added. “There’s tons of interest. I will put as many of the rooftops in play as I can.” I wonder if they will consider covering excess space with solar PV panels? They could become a massive distributed power source, which would contribute somewhat towards the power requirements of the data centre below. It's amazing to think of how the internet is changing cities and buildings. Reminds me of phone boxes that are being converted into other uses (such as electric vehicle recharging stations, mini-libraries and Wi-Fi hotspots) since they've been made obsolete by mobile phones. http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/10/spectrum-interactive-wifi-hotspots-london-phone-boxe/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/10/spectrum-interactive-wifi... http://phys.org/news192197933.html http://phys.org/news192197933.html http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/19/british-phoneboxes-converted-into-libraries-art-spaces/ http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/19/british-phoneboxes-convert...
- josh2600 13y agoSomewhat tangential, but still part of the core argument: Most of the issue with power is moving it. Generating power is not trivial, but it's easier than moving power, which is still very inefficient. Distributed solar panels on the roofs of Sears facilities might offset their own carbon footprint, but it's unlikely that the power they generate would have a significant impact on the surrounding area. This is the reason we don't have giant floating solar panels in the ocean, for example.
- patrickk 13y agoIs there any reason why they couldn't do some sort of deal with the likes of Solar City? Sears has rooftop space, Solar City has the guys to install panels. They've done deals with other big companies in the past to cover their rooftops with panels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity#Commercial_solar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity#Commercial_solar
- josh2600 13y agoI don't know what SolarCity would do other than install the panels. Does SolarCity participate in the resale of power to the grid? I wasn't aware that they were an energy broker.
- brudgers 13y agoThis makes sense. Most of the spaces Sears is closing are obsolescent for retail uses for several reasons. There is a vast over-supply of retail space in general, partially because the boom generated construction for the sake of construction, partially because the bust reduced consumer spending and partially because of the internet. Retail shopping has also changed. Malls are being replaced by power centers and urban core retail is being revitalized. And there's Walmart for household items and Home Depot for white goods and Dicks for athletic equimpment etc. One of the biggest changes is the way in which stores are placed relative to catchment. Driving patterns have changed and interstate access is more important than a high traffic corner for big box retail. Sears locations were based on the old model. That said, their locations on older arterials tends to correlate with high levels of utility infrastructure. A collapsing retail micro-environment may mean surplus utility capacity. Which reminds me that another trend making Sears commercial buildings obsolescent is the radically improved energy efficiency of modern retail design - big boxes have skylights, etc. [edit] A bit more about power supply. Local power companies sell power. That's how they make money. Like the Sears stores are surplus retail space, they often have capacity in the wrong places. They will cut deals in exchange for a long term return - it's why they run lines to a site in the first place.
- jaynos 13y agoLots of good points. K-Mart is especially ripe for conversion since, in addition to your points, their stores are two large for most retailers to move into and too small for a Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
- brudgers 13y agoNational Big Box retailers rarely move into existing buildings unless the real-estate market is tight and entitling new development or re-development exceptionally difficult. Otherwise it is more cost effective to demolish and build to suit. They have corporate planners, architects, and lawyers who do this sort of thing day in/out. In another life, I worked for an architect who did nothing but Walgreens stores. Once their analysis showed that a corner met their traffic count, it didn't matter how much the land cost. The pharmacy would pay for it in 30-90 days. That's why there will be a CVS across the street.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThe challenge I see here is power provisioning. With the space that a Sears store offers, you'd be hard pressed to put 10 to 50 MW of power into it. But perhaps if you already have the land covered smaller things are more desirable.
- sebastianavina 13y agoTomorrow: Google buys SEARS, register as a new G4 provider.
- liotier 13y agoCooling costs ! Buildings whose whole structure doesn't take data center cooling requirements into account are at a significant cost disadvantage over modern ones built specifically with cooling optimization in mind.
- SoftwareMaven 13y agoBut you have to include the cost of building the entire building and real estate. That's a sunk cost for Sears, so they don't have to worry about that.
- brudgers 13y agoThe buildings do not have to be full to bring in more revenue than when sitting empty. Once they pay for operating expenses, everything else is profit. In many cases, I suspect the buildings are paid for, so the value of the real-estate is a sunk cost. These aren't going to be on Google's scale. This is Ace Hardware not Home Depot. Optimization scales accordingly.
- mbreese 13y agoI'm not surprised at all, given the Sears real estate portfolio. In Indianapolis, a company converted an old mall into a data center, and it seems to be working pretty well [1]. Retail buildings probably have a decent connection to the power grid, so it would really make sense to make use of the open spaces. [1] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/30/lifeline-data-centers-announces-second-phase-at-former-shopping-mall/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/30/lifel...
- riggins 13y agothe erosion of shopping malls continues. warrants noting that malls require anchor tenants to work. It's the convenience of to being able to go to one location and get clothes, tools, make-up, music, videos, books, etc, that makes malls work. I know people have been predicting the demise of the shopping mall since their introduction but this will be interesting to watch.