It's not often that you hear a data center described in glowing terms from a design standpoint, but L.L. Bean's new facility in Freeport, Maine -- which has achieved a LEED Silver certification -- has achieved that status.

An internal shot of the L.L. Bean data center. Photo courtesy idGroup.

The 18,000 square foot facility, which will hold 144 racks of servers to power the retailer's online operations, is only the eighth data center in the U.S. to achieve LEED certification, and the first in New England. In an article in Computerworld, Patrick Thibodeau describes it thusly:

Most data centers have the ambience of bomb shelters, but not one built by retailer L.L. Bean.

The Freeport, Maine-based company made sure its new 18,000 square-foot data center had plenty of natural light and views of trees. It wanted something comfortable, conducive to work and environmentally sensitive. Natural light accomplishes all that.

"You don't mind being cooped up in a three-hour planning meeting; when your mind wanders you can look outside and see the clouds flow by," said Rocko Graziano, who managers the retailer's infrastructure operations and services.

In addition to meeting LEED certification for green building standards, L.L. Bean's new facility, which was designed by architecture and engineering firm integrated design Group (idGroup), meets the standards of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). In building the site, idGroup recycled 50 percent of all construction waste, and used wood harvested within a 500-mile radius, using sustainable forestry practices, for the data center's New England-style shingles.

Although computing industry groups have pushing for a data center-specific LEED rating for some time, the standard is still in the works, although companies are still putting the existing LEED system to their own uses in new data center projects. Earlier this year, Citi earned the world's first LEED Platinum certification for a data center, while a new facility opened by Emerson Electric in St. Louis, Mo., last week used LEED as a guideline for building the site without going for certification.

Server racks inside the L.L. Bean data center. Photo courtesy idGroup.