Last week, 365 Main (365main.com) decided to do the latter at the community grand opening of its 135,600-square foot Los Angeles data center in El Segundo.

The data center developer and operator celebrated the opening of the facility by awarding its first-ever 365 Main ACE Award, which celebrates achievement, commitment and excellence in individuals and charities in the communities in which it operates.

The grand opening event drew in more than 250 customers, prospects, vendors and equity partners, and featured facility tours, entertainment, fine wine and a specially prepared menu from the New York Food Company.

But the main focus was on ACE award recipient Dustin Plunkett and Special Olympics Southern California (sosc.org), an organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

Plunkett began his relationship with Special Olympics as an active athlete, and would later become both a coach and mentor for the organization. He is now the global messenger for SOSC and also represents athletes on the SOSC board of trustees.

"This is definitely part of our philosophy in giving back to the community," says Dolan, 365 Main president and founding partner. "We're active members of the San Francisco food bank program. We also offer a program for non-profit companies in the data center where we offer them services at no charge and they only pay for their consumables, such as power."

365 Main made a financial contribution to SOSC on Plunkett's behalf and is working with a number of charities in Chandler, Arizona and northern Virginia, where it recently opened new data centers. 

With nearly one million square feet of data center real estate under management nationwide, 365 Main's other properties include the 228,000-square foot flagship data center in San Francisco, the 315,000-square foot Phoenix facility and the 145,000-square foot northern Virginia complex, which will open on September 1.

365 Main leases its modern data centers to dedicated hosting providers and also offers core hosting services to large enterprises such as Charles Schwab, the Oakland Raiders and Sun Microsystems.

The majority of its clients are located close to the data centers they occupy, with 85 percent of the company?s San Francisco customers situated within a 60 mile radius and its Los Angeles market bearing a similar percentage. But Dolan says the company's Phoenix and Virginia facilities are showing different results.

"In Phoenix and Virginia we're seeing more customers that are focused on their power costs," he says. "That was part of our strategic move into the region, where power can be a third of the cost as what it is in the Bay area."

Each facility features essential power, cooling, security and connectivity to fuel increasingly complex and demanding enterprise computing environments.

All facilities are are certified to the highest industry standards and compliance requirements, including SAS 70.

"Our goal was to stabilize our flagship property in San Francisco and then strategically grow in a very methodical way to where we acquired additional properties," says Dolan. "We're really looking for quality facilities from an infrastructure standpoint. We're really focused on the world?s finest data centers. That?s what drove us to the El Segundo facility."