Agenda - Planning Commission - 05/02/2002

Home

Telco Hotels Find Their Zone By Angela ~/esaros I ~ ncreases in Interne~ use and an open telecommunication~ ! marker have meant a growth in te[ecommunicafions ("telco' I or "telecom") hotels, a land use for which location decisions are important. As these uses become more Common, many cities are finding a need to regulate them. Telecommunications facilities houae large equipment. As a result, the firms involved often Ichoose to.locate them in older warehouse buildings and department stores within or near central business districts. This issue of Zon;ng News will examine zoning requirements and planning strategies for telco hotels. · i The Nature a{ the Beast Inside telco hotels is equipment for telecommunications uses, including switches, routers, operation centers, and other in£rastrucrure critical for dot<om companies, Internet servers, data firms, fiber-optic cable, and other technology providers. In an online article for Engineering News-Record (~'Telecom Hotels' Come On Line," September 1 I, 2000, at wvcw. enr. com), Nadine M. Post and Janice Dkxon define a telecom or carrier hotel az a 'core and shell with utility hookups and connectivity onto the fiber-optic information superhighway." Trico hotels have secure =rooms" that tenanra, ~mostly telecommunications companies and [nternet service providers, rent and then jan full o£sracked file servers and switches that allow their clients--businessesmto conduct electronic commerce." The buildings have shared are= for tenants' electrical' transformers, backup generators, and mechanical cooling units. As Catherine Reagor notes (~Telco H0teli," Urban Land, May 2000), the telco hotel originated when one telecom firm set up its multi-million dollar equipment in a building, and several others wanted to be at the same location in order to tie into the original tenant's networks. Telecommunications hubs have been established in nor only the biggest U.S. cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, but also second-tier cities, including Atlanta and Phoenix. Firms axe willing m share space so they can be near fiber-optic networks and tie into one another's systems. Telcos seek very specific building requirements when choosing a property. Key f~crors in telco hotel location include: · immediate proximity to multiple fiber-optics connections · 12-foot minimum ceiling height · fiber-load capacity of ar least 125 pounds per square foot access to multiple power grids space for fuel storage and back-up generators · space fbr udlity and fiber-optic lines A~RIL 2002 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Telco hotels have secure "rooms" that tenants, "mostly telecommunications companies and Internet service providers, rent and then jam Full stacked file servers and switches that allow their clients--businesses--to conduct electronic commerce." 22!