FKG Group Planning Multi-Million-Dollar Move Into Storage

F.K. Gardner & Sons Pty Ltd (FKG Group) is planning a multi-million-dollar move into electronic storage having submitted an application to Toowoomba Regional Council to design and construct Australia’s first regionally-based data centre.

FKG Group manager property development Dallas Hunter said it would be an exciting project and a significant economic development driver for the Toowoomba region.

“Toowoomba is a perfect location to build a high-tech, secure data facility due its geographic advantages being 100 km from Brisbane, with low yearly temperature variation and extremely good fibre connections being arranged,” said Hunter.

If approved, the $100 million data centre would be built on a four-hectare industrial site within the FKG Witmack Industry Park on the western side of Toowoomba and adjacent to the established Vinidex and Iplex Pipelines facilities.

The $20 million first stage of the 12,000m² centre would comprise 300 data racks with construction expected to start within 12-months of approval. The Toowoomba data centre would have sophisticated cooling, security and energy connections and backup systems to tier III classification.

Hunter said that as companies continued to outsource storage amid growing demands for cloud computing, DR backup and the need for physical separation of stored data, FKG was confident of the project’s long-term viability.

“Many firms who maintain in-house servers incur considerable capital expenditure and utility costs so we expect to attract interest from some of Australia’s leading financial institutions, universities and large corporate entities, especially now that we also have improved national connectivity with Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport,” said Hunter. “Unlike capital cities where storage centres are housed in multi-storey buildings, our centre will be constructed as an industrial facility as is common in the US.“

“The development will be scalable and will not be limited by area, energy and cooling constraints or burdened with large upfront capital costs for underutilised floor space in the initial construction,” he said.

Hunter said that the FKG data centre development would prove Toowoomba to be a optimal data centre location in terms of geographic advantage and connectivity, and it is expected that the Toowoomba data centre would offer very competitive rates. Hunter said FKG would potentially welcome a joint-venture IT partner who could add value to the project.