Digital Realty Enters Australian Market

Digital Realty Trust has entered the Australian data centre market with the acquisition of a 3.48 hectare (8.6 acre) development site in Sydney, Australia where it plans to build more than 200,000 square feet of raised-floor space. Digital Realty paid $10.7 million for the land, which represents the company's first acquisition in Australia.

The site, located in the Erskine Park section of the Western Sydney Employment Hub, is capable of supporting approximately 18,600 square meters (200,00 square feet) of data centre development with over 11.5 megawatts of IT capacity. Digital Realty (DLR) has secured permitting for the development and plans to start construction on the first phase of 9,300 square meters (100,000 square feet) in the fall of 2011, which will consist of building out the first of two data centre facilities. The building is designed to support four 1,440 kW Turn-Key Datacentre PODs.

"The acquisition of this site adds a very important market to our portfolio and is key to our expansion in the Asia Pacific region," said Michael Foust, Chief Executive Officer for Digital Realty Trust. "The Sydney market is characterized by a robust business environment, yet has a limited supply of data centre space available to meet customer demand for highly reliable, flexible and secure facilities."

"In the Sydney market, the availability of data centre space has long been the domain of colocation, managed services and regional telecommunications providers," said Kris Kumar, Regional Head, Asia Pacific, Digital Realty Trust. "We believe that our ability to deliver secure, reliable and cost effective data centre solutions will be a significant benefit to customers that are expanding their IT operations in the region. Utilizing our operating expertise and global resources, we expect a twelve month construction period to complete the building's shell and core and the first two 1440 kW Turn-Key Datacentre PODs."

Digital Realty is the world's largest operator of data center facilities. Late last year the company acquired its first facility in the Asia-Pacific region, buying a 375,000 square foot data center in Singapore.  It has already leased more than 70,000 square feet of space, including a data center for Adobe Systems (ADBE).