A Marion company broke ground Monday in Akron, Ohio, for a $20 million data storage facility.

Involta LLC, ranked No. 40 on the Inc 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately owned companies in the United States, said the 46,000-square-foot hardened data center will be twice the size of its Marion data center at 5055 REC Dr. off Highway 13.

The company said the Akron data center will be completed and fully operational in the final quarter of 2011. It will feature environmental systems and controls, redundant back-up power, specialized fire suppression, and reinforced concrete building construction.

The Akron facilitywill provide many advantages for local and national businesses including “the ability to share the high costs of housing and managing mission critical systems and the option of off-site data storage for disaster preparedness planning,” said Bruce Lehrman, Involta chief executive officer. “By co-locating, businesses can have the advantages of a data center while actually cutting costs.  Using this data center will allow business leaders to focus on their core businesses rather than complex infrastructure and facilities issues.”

Lehrman cited the assistance of Summit County (Ohio), the City of Akron and the Greater Akron Chamber for making the data center project possible.

Tad Davies, executive vice president of Bick Group of St. Louis, which is providing design-build services for the project, said the Involta data center should earn LEED certification for efficient use of energy, lighting, water and materials.