A technology management company is building a data center in Downtown Bloomington. (Photo By Paul Morello/WJBC)

By Paul Morello

BLOOMINGTON - A technology systems company is repurposing the old Illinois Healthcare Insurance Company building in Downtown Bloomington.

A5 is opening a data center at 303 E. Washington Street later this month. A5 president and CEO Steve Hope said Wednesday the project cost about $2 million.

"We had to go through the asbestos abatement for the building, we had to rip out basically everything on the whole first floor and start from scratch. Now we're building back in the offices and the conference rooms," he said.

The data center will house servers for companies that want to utilize off-site and cloud storage.

The area was recently included in Bloomington's enterprise zone.

"The enterprise zone that the city has talked to us about was an enticing aspect of it, but to be honest, we haven't seen anything because of that yet," Hope said. "I don't think it has gone through all the way yet."

A5 bought the building in June and Hope expects the renovation to be completed in the next few weeks.

Hope said three people will staff the data center, but more may be hired in the future, depending on server demand.

A5 plans to leave the second floor of the building temporarily unfinished.

"We're going to have a lot of office space available to rent also, but the data center is the main focus and that's where a lot of the build-out is that you're seeing being done," Hope said. 

Paul Morello can be reached at paul@wjbc.com.