INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR​

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Brief

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The owner of a large warehouse facility in Scandanavia was keen to explore change of use opportunities for the asset. 

 

The cooler climate, availability of low-cost renewable power, reasonable land prices together with government tax incentives are attracting data centre operators looking to develop in this region.  The hyperscale and cloud community have been quick to catch-on and are rapidly deploying substantial data centre campuses across the region. 

 

VIPA Digital’s expertise in this sector was engaged to assess whether the client’s warehouse facility could be repurposed to become an attractive data centre facility for a local and international market.  

 

VIPA Digital was engaged to assess the concept from all angles. The availability of power and data together with market supply & demand were all considered in delivering clear recommendations to the client.​

Delivery

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VIPA Digital worked with local energy providers to determine whether power could be delivered to the site and quotations were obtained to give the client an understanding of the cost to do so.

 

Existing relationships and information provided by local business working-groups allowed a thorough understanding of the local data centre trends to be understood and documented for our client.

 

Subsea cable networks and local carrier maps were analysed to provide a viewpoint of the likely connectivity options available to the property.

 

Together this information and more was packaged in a concise report format with an accompanying presentation.

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Results

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The study confirmed:

 

• That power and data are readily available.

• That the building was technically suitable for data centre conversion and

• That there was a market in the country for large scale data centres. 

 

Everything looked positive however, the location of the warehouse was shown to be in an area where land and energy prices were high compared to the rest of the country. This, together with a market for hyperscale data centres that was becoming saturated and a minimal market for nearby colocation, meant that end-customers were likely to look elsewhere before coming to this facility. The conclusion drawn was not to go ahead without first securing an anchor tenant or strong sales pipeline from end clients with a specific need to be in this area.

 

VIPA Digital delivered its findings in both written and presentation formats to ensure the client fully understood the findings. A rapid turn-around prevented the client from spending on further unnecessary studies or developing the design beyond concept prematurely – saving far more than the cost of this VIPA Digital engagement. The client may now concentrate to secure a suitable tenant for this exciting data centre project.

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