NextDC buys up Melbourne and Brisbane data centre land

Brisbane and Melbourne properties bought up by new data centre player as gold rush continues

The latest entrant in the data centre gold rush has purchased properties in Melbourne and Brisbane to build concrete facilities.

In a statement former Pipe Networks chief and now NextDC founder and direct, Bevan Slattery said the 14,000 sqm Port Melbourne property was large enough for future expansion and was close to power and telecommunications services.

“We have also acquired a solid concrete building in Brisbane CBD with net lettable area of approx 2300 sqm,” Slattery said. “This property will enable NextDC to address immediate demand for data centre space in Brisbane.”

Slattery has also put $15 million in equity into the company to support it’s growth plans. The Port Melbourne facility is expected to be operational in 12 months time while the Brisbane data centre will be online by the end of the year.

The news comes on the back of a rash of data centre announcements, the latest being a $72 million investment by Equinix in the first phase of its new International Business Exchange data centre, SY3, in Sydney.

Prior to that Global Switch joined the throng unveiling new multi-million dollar facility plans with an application to the NSW Department of Planning for a $200 million data centre in Sydney.

The organisation is planning to build the new 34,000sqm facility – called Sydney 2 - next to its existing data centre in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Ultimo that is running close to full capacity.

Check out photos of HP's data centre in Sydney or Internode's facility in South Australia.

That announcement came on the same day Brisbane telecommunications provider, Over The Wire, opened the doors to its new data centre in Spring Hill, Brisbane.

The announcements represent significant capital investments and construction job growth, with facilities often costing upwards of $100 million and needing 500-plus staff to build.

In April, iiNet (ASX:IIN) touted its green credentials with the launch of its new energy efficient data centre at its Osborne Park facility in Western Australia.

In February, TransACT launched a new 1000 square metre data centre to take its total number of facilities to three, with the first opened in 2001.

And in December Australian Data Centres (ADC) said it will open up a 3000 square metre Tier 3 facility in Mitchell, Canberra, by the third quarter of 2010.

ADC's announcement followed news from Fujitsu that it will build a new data centre in Perth, Western Australia and also reports that Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong could play host to new world-class data centres as part of investment plans by a joint venture group that includes the company behind the Polaris facility in Queensland.

Analyst firm IDC has described Australia as having some of the oldest data centres in the Asia Pacific region. It says this "is significant in that old data centres are more expensive to maintain, less reliable and often unable to cope with the demands placed on them by modern servers and storage".

Also in data centre news this week the NSW Government announced the short list of organisations for its ambitious data centre consolidation plans, seven months after expressions of interest closed.

The list has been culled from 17 to five, knocking-out including high-profile organisations including CSC, Fujitsu Australia and Oracle Australia.

Providers are bidding to assist with the "design, construction, commissioning, financing and provision" for the Data Centre Reform Project which will reduce the government’s 130 data centres into two, based in Sydney and Illawarra.

At the Federal level, in March the Government announced a whole-of-government data centre strategy which will govern procurement and consolidation of existing and new data centres for all departments over the next 15 years. For more information on data centre providers search the Computerworld Data Centre Directory.

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags IDCBevan SlatteryNextDC

More about ACTADCCSC AustraliaEquinixFujitsuFujitsuGlobal SwitchHewlett-Packard AustraliaHPIDC AustraliaIinetInternodeNSW GovernmentOracleTier 3

Show Comments
[]