177 Bothwell Street’s ambition to be the ‘most advanced office building in Scotland’ has been boosted by the announcement that Datavita plans to open a new data centre within the Glasgow facility, which is being developed by HFD Group.
The installation of the data centre represents a £6 million investment from Datavita and will be the firm’s second facility, adding to its acquisition of the Fortis data centre in Lanarkshire last year.
The 150-rack capacity facility will be Scotland’s first ‘metro’ data centre and will support occupiers in 177 Bothwell Street along with the wider business community in Glasgow’s International Financial Services District (IFSD) and beyond.
The data centre will support the tech, financial services, and fintech sectors, along with city centre projects such as the roll-out of 5G and internet of things (IoT) networks. it is expected to be operational by Q3 2022.
Danny Quinn, MD at Datavita, said, “The installation of our new metro data centre at 177 Bothwell Street is a large part of our plan for growth. Having the data centre in the heart of the city will not only support the capabilities of 177 Bothwell Street, but will support the growing demand from telecoms, IoT, and smart city technologies providers for quality data centre services in the heart of Glasgow city centre.”
177 Bothwell Street is the first development in Scotland to achieve a ‘Platinum’ WiredScore certification, recognising that occupiers will have the best connectivity available.
A large part of the building is pre-let to Virgin Money for its new HQ, while AECOM, BNP Paribas, CBRE, Transport Scotland, and HFD Group will also take space in the building.
Stephen Lewis, MD at HFD Property Group, added, “Having a dedicated data centre at 177 Bothwell Street underlines HFD’s commitment to being a full-service property developer, giving our occupiers and the wider city access to the IT infrastructure they need. Occupiers within 177 are able to locate their IT systems in a purpose-built data centre within the building, benefitting from its inherent resilience and energy efficiency.
“The data centre will also provide the building with the IT infrastructure necessary for the many smart building technologies we are installing to make it operate as efficiently as possible.”
