Next DC Acquires Next Macquarie Park property for Data Centre

20 December 2022

Next DC has settled on the acquisition of a 22,540sqm parcel of land for its 3rd Macquarie Park Data Centre.

The Group has acquired 269 Lane Cove Rd for $95m from Mirvac in a deal which was inked in late November.

The high profile site is on the corner of Waterloo Rd and sits adjacent to the Macquarie Park metro station. Mirvac originally acquired site in 2004 for $25m as part of the acquisition of the James Fielding Group and was held in the Mirvac Property Trust. Following completion of the rail link through Macquarie Park in 2009, the NSW Government and North Ryde Council prepared a new LEP to provide significant development uplift to the sites along Waterloo Rd and particularly within close proximity to the railway stations. The new LEP was finalised in Aug 2016. As part of the LEP process, Mirvac submitted a Planning Proposal which included an indicative scheme for two 40 storey residential apartment buildings with a potential GFA of 67,000sqm.

In 2017, Mirvac adopted a market value for the site of $38.5m and later that year, Mirvac transferred the site out of the Mirvac Property Trust to Mirvac Projects for $38.5m. The site still contains 2 two storey buildings with a total NLA of 12,564sqm, however with the development potential of the site, it makes me wonder whether Mirvac Property Trust investors received fair value for the internal transfer of the asset.

Should NextDC develop the site for a DataCentre, it will be their third Centre in Macquarie Park with their first 16MW Centre at 4 Eden Park Drive and their 2nd, a 30MW facility, at 6-8 Giffnock Ave. NextDC’s latest DataCentre to open in Sydney was at 2 Broadcast Way, Artarmon and comprised a building of 34,000sqm over eight levels ad provides 80MW of IT capacity.

The new North Ryde site has twice the development capacity of the Artarmon and could become NextDCs’, 2nd largest DataCentre in Australia, with its Footscray Centre due to open in 2023 comprising 150MW facility costing NextDC approximately $230m to develop.

NextDC or Mirvac are yet to comment on the transaction.