When I moved to Houston nearly five years ago, one of my long-term goals was to land a job downtown. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been enamored with big-city downtowns — something about a city’s core is electrifying. It might be the commerce that’s going on all around – the undeniable relevance of what’s happening inside the Fortune 500 company headquarters. Maybe it’s the movement — messengers zipping by on their bikes, the light rail smoothly slipping through intersections, cabbies weaving in and out of traffic, and businessmen and women hustling to meetings, gripping phones, laptop bags and a Venti Starbucks. Or, perhaps it’s just my personal awe of ginormous buildings made of glass and steel (especially 75-story ones).

Whatever the reason for my infatuation, I’m an especially big fan of Houston’s downtown. I’m lucky that The Planet’s headquarters are located here, and I’m within walking distance of some of the coolest destinations in town: the Angelika, which regularly screens indie, foreign, and critically-acclaimed flicks; the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, with a regular schedule of Broadway shows; a bevy of dining options (Post Oak Grill and Azuma are personal favorites); and Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros.

Our latest Storage Cloud customer, Central Houston, is one of the reasons Houston is so great. The 26-year-old nonprofit has championed the sustainable revitalization of Houston’s center city, spearheading downtown improvement projects and encouraging businesses to land here. The organization has been a driving force behind some of my favorite downtown developments: Discovery Green – a 12-acre urban park that hosts free outdoor concerts, ice skating in winter and “yoga on the green”; the Buffalo Bayou Walk – a perfect trail for those long marathon-training runs or a scenic walk at lunchtime; the Houston Pavilions – home of a 2-story Forever 21 (my idea of heaven); and House of Blues Houston – the venue where I’ve seen acts from Arctic Monkeys to OAR to Who’s Bad, a – you guessed it – Michael Jackson cover band.

Amidst all of these other incredible projects, Central Houston manages a historical repository of downtown — including old photos, maps and various business documents — so they required fail-safe storage to protect their critical data. They selected our Storage Cloud based on a number of factors, chief of which are the product’s scalability and ease of management. And, of course, they’re neighbors of ours in this big, bustling downtown. And in Texas, that counts for a lot.

You can read more about their selection of The Planet Storage Cloud here: http://www.theplanet.com/about/news-events/press-releases/2010/Central-Houston-Selects-The-Planet-Storage-Cloud/

-Katie