Whether Storing Food or Data, Site is Ideal

If The Joe Cartoon Co.'s Web site crashes, a data center provides redundancy. The need for secure and reliable backup sources has become widespread. What is different about Joe Cartoon's provider is its location?85 feet under ground in an old gypsum mine outside Grand Rapids, Mich.

Data Center Operations L.L.C., which signed its first deal in July 2001, has 750,000 square feet of space in six miles of tunnels. A frozen food storage site for decades, it is well equipped. It is mostly gypsum, which is fire-retardant, and has a constant temperature of 50 degrees and low humidity, which keeps HVAC costs down.

It is also less expensive than the alternatives, said Irvin Wolfson, vice president of sales and marketing. "Our cost of operations is ... lower being underground"

Other companies have sprung up to offer similar services from other obscure locations, such as an abandoned nuclear missile silo, the island nation of Sealand, a Swiss Alps military installation, a Pennsylvania limestone mine and a salt mine in Kansas.

But Wolfson and his team of 10 expect to attract their share of tenants. "We are very much in a lot of people's minds."