[brian_b]

The ABC building is already connected to the Lakeside building via an existing skybridge. The Lakeside building uses the paper delivery system (it was also previously a printing plant) as a competitive advantage - this allows shorter fiber runs between floors and is as major selling point for the prop trading firms. Running fiber through the existing skybridge would give the proposed data center a competitive advantage over a data center farther down the road.

Furthermore, the Lakeside center has multiple redundant power delivery points (it is supposedly the 2nd largest consumer of electricity in Chicago) that can be leveraged for the proposed data center as well as a truly gigantic brine-based cooling system that can also be leveraged for the proposed data center. Since both buildings already exist and the ABC building is vacant, it really does make a lot of sense to put the data center there - if a data center is going to be built in the area.