A legacy data center in Sydney, Australia, is set to be demolished and replaced with a larger facility.

In a SEARS application with the New South Wales government, a 70MW data center is being planned at 23-25 Waterloo Road in the Macquarie Park/North Ryde area of the city.

The existing building would be demolished, with the 1.2-hectare site instead hosting a purpose-built multi-story facility totaling 23,375 sqm across eight floors.

The application was filed by Willowtree Planning for Greenbox Architecture, but site plan documents list Digital Realty as the project client.

Up to AU$700 million (US$482m) could be invested in the project.

The site is home to a Digital Realty data center that the company acquired in 2013 for AU$11.75 million. At the time, it was fully leased to global IT services and products supplier Fujitsu until 2016.

Fujitsu still lists the facility on its website as its North Ryde facility: the single-story data center spans 3,600 sqm (38,750 sq ft) in a single data hall, offering 4.8MW.

Digital operated the site as its SYD13 facility, though it is currently not listed on the company’s website.

The site was first zoned for data center use in 2000, according to the SEARS document. Previously owned by Exodus Corporation, Fujitsu bought the site from Exodus in 2002 after the data center company declared bankruptcy in the wake of the dotcom bubble and was acquired by Cable and Wireless.

Reports surfaced in 2024 that Fujitsu was looking to offload its Australian data center operations.