A real estate firm has been granted permission to build a data center in Bucharest, Romania.
Local publication Profit.ro reports Portland Trust, one of the largest developers of office buildings in Romania, has been authorized to build a data center on a 4-hectare plot of land in the Preciziei area of the capital city.
Bought from Broadhurst Investments, the land is located behind the Policolor factory and the Tip Top pastry factory in the Militari district. Portland aims to build a single two-story data center with approximately 20,000 square meters (215,280 sq ft) of floorspace.
Founded in 1997, Portland Trust is a commercial real estate developer and asset manager with offices in Prague and Bucharest. The company has had a long-term joint venture with Ares Management Corporation (formerly Area Property Partners).
The company is traditionally focused on office buildings and parks, and has previously developed supermarkets, shopping centers, and light industrial & logistics parks.
Profit.ro reports the company is looking to diversify into data centers amid a downturn in demand for office space. Last year the company was reported to be planning a data center in the Vitan area of Bucharest. It is demolishing buildings bought from the Icemenerg-Service branch of Transelectrica to develop a two-story facility spanning 8,800 sqm (94,722 sq ft). It is set to be completed by the end of 2024.
The company has previously expanded into solar farm development, selling a 153MW project in 2021.
Existing data center operators in Romania include NXData, GTS, and InfiniteChain. ClusterPower is one of the largest data center firms in Romania.
Last year Knight Frank data said two new data centers totaling 40-45MW are set to be built in Romania. Microsoft has previously been reported as looking at developing a campus in the country.
“If we look at Romania's population and take into account the expansion of artificial intelligence and the migration to the cloud, we have the potential of 100MW data centers in Romania, compared to about 10 we currently have in Bucharest. We are talking about possible investments of €900 million in total,” said Stephen Beard, global head of data centers at Knight Frank.
Founded in 1997, California-based Ares has more than $300 billion of assets under management. The company closed a $5 billion infrastructure debt fund last year. EdgeConneX secured more than $1 billion in sustainability-linked debt financing from funds managed by Ares Management Corporation’s Infrastructure Debt unit in 2022, and was one of three companies to loan Vantage a total of €750 million ($813m) for its EMEA rollout.
