Datum has been granted planning permission for a new data center in Manchester.
Approved this week by Manchester City Council and reported by North West Place, the company had applied in June 2023 to demolish Simon House, on Brownley Road, and build a two-story data center spanning 4,153 sqm (44,700 sq ft).
The development must begin within three years. The existing building is a two-story office building most recently used as a job center until it was vacated.
Local colo provider Teledata first announced plans for a second Manchester data center (known as MCR2) back in June 2022. However, after Datum acquired the company, timelines for the facility were pushed back amid a change of plan.
Teledata had bought and planned to retrofit the existing building to offer 25,000 sq ft of data center space and 4MVA of capacity. Datum decided instead to demolish the existing structure and start from scratch with a purpose-built data center (with the same footprint and capacity).
The planning statement said the existing building provides “insufficient floor space” to cater to demand, and a new development offered the change to build a more efficient building with “substantively improved” sustainability and energy credentials.
Teledata had last year been granted permission to a change of use of the existing property, with the ground floor to be converted into 1,470 sqm of data halls and the first floor retained for office use – along with a new substation and fuel cell/backup generator deployment.
Launched in 2007, Datum’s MCR1 facility is located in the adjacent Delta House. The company offers colocation space across five data halls in an eight-story, 70,000 sq ft building.
Launched in 2012, Datum also operates the Datum FRN1 facility in the QinetiQ Cody Technology Park in Farnborough, located outside London. The 40,000 sq ft (3,716 sqm) facility was built by KeySource in 2012.
Datum was acquired by funds managed by the UBS Asset Management (UBS-AM) Real Estate & Private Markets business (REPM) in September 2021.
