New Zealand data center operator Gen-i – part of the Telecom New Zealand Group – said it is “well underway” with construction of a new enterprise data center, costing NZ$60m, in Takanini, a suburb of Auckland, on the North Island.

The data center is just that the company is working on in 2013. In August it opened a new 1,000 sq m data center, built to a Tier III standard, in Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

The Christchurch facility has room for 180 racks and provides a range of colocation and cloud services, and connects to five other facilities across New Zealand operated by Infrastructure -as-a-Service company Revera Homeland, also part of Telecom New Zealand.

Gen-i CEO Tim Niles said the Takinini data center will also be built to a Tier III standard.

Once the greenfield build is complete - in the second half of 2014 - he expects it to be one of the country’s most sophisticated data center builds, with room for 1,200 racks.

“The new Auckland facility will further increase our capability to deliver the data center and cloud services our clients increasingly need and want,” Miles said.

“The Takanini data center will be an important addition to Gen-i and Revera’s combined fleet of 20 data centers nationwide.”

Revera is also expanding its own data center footprint, adding space to its Wellington data center and Gen-i is carrying out a further expansion - at a cost of NZ$2m - at its Dunedin site.

Telecom New Zealand purchased Revera in April this year for NZ$96.5m, adding five data centers to its footprint.

The new Takanini site is being developed with Retail Holdings Limited, who engaged Hawkins Construction and AECOM for design and build.