Macquarie Park confirmed as NextDC site

NextDC founder Bevan Slattery has confirmed that its datacentre will be located in the major northern Sydney technology hub Macquarie Park, following a preliminary non-binding heads-of-agreement last month.

NextDC's Bevan Slattery (Credit: Luke Hopewell/ZDNet Australia)

It had been surmised that the datacentre might be located in that area, as the company had previously said that the site would ideally be situated next to major infrastructure in a "precinct which is recognised as one of Australia's major technology hubs". Macquarie Park hosts major technology companies such as Optus, CSC and Microsoft.

Now the company has confirmed that the datacentre will indeed be situated near these tech giants.

"This morning [NextDC] notified the vendors that it is satisfied with those [due diligence] inquiries, making the contract for the purchase of the site unconditional," the company said in a release.

The site, likely to hold between 4000 and 6000 square metres of floor space, is expected to be operational by quarter three of 2011.

The contract for the purchase of the site is set to be completed on 28 April.

The site signing comes after Slattery told the attendees of a Gartner conference in March that Sydney is running out of power and, as a result, future datacentre investments in the city will be limited.

HP, Equinix, Macquarie Telecom and Global Switch are all in the process of building facilities.

Dell has also outlined a $1 billion global strategy that includes datacentre investment in Australia, but has not yet confirmed a site for the investment.