An application has been filed to build a new data center campus in Sydney, Australia. It may be an Amazon-related project.
LCI Consultants has filed a Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs) request with the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI) for a data center development in the Glendenning area of West Sydney.
The company is requesting permission to develop three five-story data centers totaling 202MW, along with an on-site substation, on land at 2 Glendenning Road. The project will see an investment of AU$2.3 billion (US$1.5bn).
The buildings would be known as DC01, DC02 and DC03 and total 53,750 sqm (578,560 sq ft): DC01 – 21,500 sqm and 79MW; DC02 – 13,950 sqm and 44MW; and DC03 – 21,500 sqm and 79MW. The site would include 97 generators in total.
The 104,320 sqm (1.1 million sq ft) site is located within the Blacktown Local Government Area and is zoned E4: General Industrial, which allows for data center development.
The land currently comprises three existing warehouse buildings; uses include storage and logistics for auto parts (Building A), storage and logistics for elevator/escalator parts (Building B), and a zero-emission transport vehicle center (Building C).
Development of the first data center would see the two existing southern buildings demolished. The third existing warehouse would only be demolished ahead of the building of the third data center.
The project may be for Amazon. Property Markets reported that Amazon acquired the warehouse site in late 2022 for AU$181 million. At the time the site was fully leased to tenants including Coles Supermarkets, GPC Asia Pacific, and Gemilang Australia with a WALE of 1.9 years. It was previously owned by AMP Capital.
Amazon launched a Sydney cloud region in 2012. The company was initially based out of Equinix’s SYD3 data center. A Wikileaks report from 2018 suggested AWS also operated out of data centers in Sydney offered by Global Switch, Fujitsu, iSeek, and NextDC.
The company operates a data center in south Sydney at Bluett Drive in the Smeaton Grange industrial park, and last year bought a second land parcel in the park on the nearby Turner Road. The company also has a campus in the Eastern Creek area of Sydney, and is said to be expanding in that area too.
