Digital Realty Ready to Build in Melbourne

Digital Realty Trust continues its expansion into the Asia-Pacific data center market. Today the company said its has completed the acquisition of a development site in Melbourne, Australia where it plans to build six of its wholesale data center "pods."

Digital Realty (DLR) paid AU 4.1 million ($4.3 million US) to acquire 162 and 163 Radnor Drive, a 30,250 square meter development site. It was the second acquisition in Australia for the real estate investment trust, which bought a development site in Sydney in July. The company had no Asia-Pacific data centers until last November, when it purchased a facility in Singapore. It has already leased more than 70,000 square feet of space, including a data center for Adobe Systems (ADBE).

"As one of Australia's largest metro areas, Melbourne is the logical market for us to expand our footprint in the region," said Michael Foust, Chief Executive Officer for Digital Realty Trust. "Like Sydney, Melbourne has a limited supply of data centre space available to meet customer demand for highly reliable, flexible and secure facilities."

Space for Six Turn-Key PODs

The Melbourne-area property is located within the Paramount Industrial Park development, approximately 19 kilometers west of the Melbourne central business district, close to the Western Freeway and Western Ring Road. The first project, 162 Radnor Drive, is capable of supporting the development of four 1.440 megawatt Turn-Key Datacentre PODs. The second project, 163 Radnor Drive, is capable of supporting the development of two 1.44 megawatt Turn-Key Datacentre PODs.

The Turn-key Datacenter program offers customers finished ”plug and play” raised-floor data center space, which shifts the data center development costs from the tenant to the landlord, and allows for much quicker deployment than if the customer built a new facility on its own.

"We have been actively engaged in discussions with a number of serious prospects in Melbourne prior to completing this acquisition," said Kris Kumar, Regional Head, Asia Pacific, Digital Realty Trust. "At the same time, we have been building out our operating platform in Australia with the addition of several new local team members. With our Australian staff in place, we will be able to deliver secure, reliable and cost effective data centre solutions to customers that are expanding their IT operations in the region. Consistent with our typical development timeline, we expect a twelve month construction period to complete the first building's shell and core and the first two 1440 kW Turn-Key Datacentre PODs."