Birmingham will be the home of a flagship data center for Atlanta-based DC BLOX, to be built on the former Trinity Steel site.

DC BLOX CEO Jeff Uphues

The move is being called one of the biggest economic development announcements in recent memory for Birmingham, as the company plans to use the 27-acre downtown site to develop what's being called a technology and innovation campus.

The company projects a possible investment of $785 million over 10 years, with the potential to elevate Birmingham's local tech scene onto a greater national profile.

Groundbreaking is expected to take place next month, with Phase 1 delivering 31,000 square feet and configurable up to 5MW of customer capacity by early 2019. It will also have 13,000 sq. ft. of office space with conference rooms, staging areas and work stations, according to information already posted on the company website.

The center is expected to hire 20 to start, but there are expected to be opportunities for additional jobs with clients at the center going forward.

The campus design will be similar to the company's Huntsville data center. The Birmingham location will join DC BLOX's Atlanta, Huntsville and Chattanooga sites on the company's high-speed, high-capacity private optical network.

Estimated economic impact of this project during the construction and operational phase is $94 million on the Birmingham metropolitan area, more than $80 million of which will be in Jefferson County, according to an analysis prepared by the University of Alabama's Center for Business and Economic Research. Economic impact on Alabama is an estimated $99 million.

DC BLOX CEO Jeff Uphues said the center will be capable of scaling to more than 200,000-square-feet of government-grade data center space. He said the company has an aggressive timeline to open the center by early next year.

"We believe this site will be a highly compelling alternative in the Southeast to Atlanta for enterprise, hyperscale cloud, 'Software-as-a-Service,' government, network and content providers," Uphues said. "It's our focus to create a multi-purpose innovation campus with collaborative workspaces worthy of housing global technology companies and academia dedicated to research and collaboration."

DC BLOX has been searching for a spot in Birmingham since the latter part of last year. COO Mark Masi said the company sought out Birmingham because of its strong local economy, geographic location, fiber optic network connectivity and the presence of UAB.