Gateway files 81MW Sydney data center plan

Gateway Capital, an Australian investment manager with AU$1.5bn under management and assets across Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, has filed a SEARS application with the New South Wales government for an 81MW data center in Sydney's St Leonards district, on the 1.8-hectare former brickworks site it bought from Dexus in 2023 for AU$118.5m (US$85.2m). First reported by the North Sydney Sun and carried by Data Center Dynamics, the filing covers a five-story building of 16,635 sqm at 12 Frederick Street with 11 data halls, 44 generators, an on-site substation, and up to AU$1bn (US$720m) of investment; documents describe the facility as constructed and operated by Gateway and Lendlease, the developer behind Sydney's Project Blue Tongue, a NextDC partnership in Adelaide, and a Tokyo project with PDG.

The 2023 acquisition, made through a joint venture with Invesco's Urban Infill Logistics, took an estate of 13 warehouse and office units covering roughly 19,400 sqm; the parcel now set aside for the data center holds two large multi-story warehouses, indoor recreation and office buildings, and car parking, while the broader area traces back to an 1800s brickworks before becoming industrial warehouses.

That 81MW figure makes this a planning event before a construction one: the data center buildout is no longer finance-constrained; it is consent-constrained. New South Wales has already tied data center approval to a 40% wind-power purchase requirement — a rule this publication covered this month — and the SEARS application moves through that same regime.

Gateway is not a firm known for data center development, and the gap between the AU$118.5m paid for the land in 2023 and the AU$1bn project ceiling suggests an industrial landlord trying to re-rate a warehouse estate as digital infrastructure. That trade depends entirely on whether the consent and the grid connection arrive. The filing puts 81MW in the queue, pending decisions that start with the state and end with the grid.