Digital Realty 907 Security Row Data Center | Richardson, Texas

DPR’s longstanding relationship with Digital Realty (DLR), forged over the course of more than a decade and more than 150 successful data center projects across the U.S., laid the groundwork for this project, which was DLR's first time using integrated project delivery (IPD) on a challenging data center project.

Employing a seven-party integrated form of agreement (IFOA), the IPD team shared all project risks and rewards on the 140,000-sq.-ft. 907 Security Row data center project. Four of the firms, including the owner, were undertaking a new delivery approach—IFOA—which they had never tried before. Well-planned alignment and trust in DPR’s experience was key.

The team focused on drafting incentives into the contract to encourage behaviors that would drive results around schedule, target cost savings, quality and efficiency innovations. The project was completed on the original 10-month schedule, approximately $500,000 under the original targeted value.

Challenges included relentless Texas rain from January through the end of May. Even with extreme rainfall in the region, which caused 52 days of weather impacts and major design changes with $1.8 million in added scope, the team was able to finish on schedule. Standardization proved helpful to devise cost saving solutions to mitigate discrepancies in some of the drawings. Integration of reporting to reflect shared costs relative to target values allowed for dynamic insight into the financial status and forecast of the project. The team was also able to make cost saving suggestions that went well beyond this particular project, some of which were added to DLR’s corporate “Design and Engineering Guideline” book, provide new efficiencies for DLR to carry forward on other projects.