Data center equipment arrives heavy, dense, and on a schedule that the rest of the build depends on. Across the Chicago metro we rig the electrical and cooling plant into new halls and live facilities — generators into yards, switchgear into electrical rooms, cooling onto roofs, and racks onto raised floors.
Quick answer: Badass Logistics provides data center rigging in Chicago, IL and the surrounding metro. We rig generators, UPS modules and batteries, switchgear, PDUs, CRAH and chiller units, and loaded racks into new builds and live data centers — on routes and schedules set around the facility. Our crews work across Chicago and nearby Illinois metros, and moves between facilities run as project freight under the same plan — usually quoted the same day. Call (307) 284-1332.
A data center is built around equipment that weighs more per square foot than almost anything else in a commercial building. Generators, UPS battery strings, and switchgear lineups have to land precisely on their pads and in their rooms, and in a live facility they have to do it without disturbing the halls that are already running. Around Chicago, the route, the floor loading, and the timing are planned before the first truck arrives.
Badass Logistics rigs the heavy plant for data centers — outside, by crane or by jacking and skidding, and inside on skates and air-ride. Electrical connection, battery commissioning, and testing stay with your electrical contractor and the OEM; we set what they connect. For the generators and transformers themselves, see transformer and generator rigging. How to move a data center →
Chicago's data center market includes 350 East Cermak (Digital Realty), Elk Grove Village data center submarket, and Equinix Chicago. New halls there arrive as a sequence of heavy deliveries — generators, switchgear, UPS, cooling — and each one has to land on its pad or in its room before the next trade can start.
Chicago, IL runs on heavy manufacturing & the nation's rail hub, and almost none of it stays put. Same crews and the same data center rigging standards across the region:
Colocation halls, hyperscale campuses, and enterprise data rooms around Chicago are built on the same heavy electrical and cooling plant. The equipment we rig includes:
The power behind those halls is local too: ComEd, ExxonMobil Joliet Refinery, and CITGO Lemont Refinery. Substation and transformer work for a new campus often runs alongside the hall itself. Outside the dedicated campuses, enterprise data rooms sit in the metro's wider building stock — loop and Streeterville high-rises, the Illinois Medical District and university campuses, and O'Hare and Midway airports carry some of the largest central plants in the country — where every delivery shares a dock and an elevator with a working building.
Standby generators and fuel systems set in yards and enclosures across the Chicago metro.
UPS modules, battery cabinets, switchgear, and PDUs moved into electrical rooms across the Chicago metro.
Cooling units, chillers, and condensers set inside and on roofs across the Chicago metro.
Loaded racks and cabinets moved on air-ride within live halls across the Chicago metro.
Plenty of Chicago jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-55, I-80, I-90 and I-94, or a facility in another state. We don't hand that part off. It runs as project freight inside the same plan: machines crated or prepped on site, loads sequenced to the rig-out, transport through our licensed broker and carrier partners with dedicated capacity for bigger moves, and our crew waiting at the destination to set it.
Long-lead gear for Chicago halls — power transformers, switchgear lineups, and generator sets — is often built far from the site. Served by BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National and CPKC, with Chicago functioning as the largest rail interchange hub in North America. The Illinois International Port District on Lake Calumet handles bulk and breakbulk cargo with access to the Great Lakes and, via the Illinois Waterway, the Mississippi River system. Each of those deliveries is booked against the construction schedule, so a late or damaged unit holds up every trade behind it.
Every data center rigging job in Chicago, IL is quoted from the actual work, not a rate sheet. These are the things that move the number — send them with your request and you'll get a real quote back fast:
Photos of the equipment, its nameplate, and the path out of the building save a site visit on smaller Chicago jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Chicago crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Chicago? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Chicago, IL and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Data Center Rigging throughout Chicago and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Joliet | Will County | 32 mi |
| Aurora | Kane County | 35 mi |
| Naperville | DuPage County | 26 mi |
| Elgin | Kane County | 35 mi |
| Cicero | Cook County | 5 mi |
| Gary, IN | Lake County | 24 mi |
| Hammond, IN | Lake County | 20 mi |
| Bolingbrook | Will County | 24 mi |
| Bedford Park | Cook County | 10 mi |
| Romeoville | Will County | 27 mi |
| Elk Grove Village | Cook County | 20 mi |
| Waukegan | Lake County | 37 mi |
| Arlington Heights | Cook County | 24 mi |
| Evanston | Cook County | 13 mi |
| Schaumburg | Cook County | 26 mi |
| Palatine | Cook County | 27 mi |
| Skokie | Cook County | 13 mi |
| Des Plaines | Cook County | 17 mi |
| Orland Park | Cook County | 19 mi |
| Tinley Park | Cook County | 20 mi |
| Oak Lawn | Cook County | 11 mi |
| Berwyn | Cook County | 7 mi |
| Mount Prospect | Cook County | 21 mi |
| Wheaton | DuPage County | 24 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Chicago services or get a quote.
Most Chicago jobs don't stop at one service. The crew that rigs a machine out is the crew that manages the move and sets it back down — so you're dealing with one company from the disconnect to the re-level, not three subcontractors pointing at each other.
Machine has to come off the floor, through the door, or onto a pad before it travels? That's the rigging side of the same Chicago crew.
Chicago riggers →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Chicago as one accountable job.
Chicago machinery moving company →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Chicago.
Chicago CNC movers →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Chicago plants.
plant relocation in Chicago →In Chicago we also run riggers, machinery movers, CNC movers, and plant relocation, plus project freight for the jobs we rig — or see every service we offer in Chicago.
The same Chicago crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Chicago: heavy lift rigging, chiller and HVAC rigging, transformer and generator rigging, MRI and medical equipment rigging, lab equipment moving, and printing press moving.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a Chicago Data Center Quote