A data center has been proposed in the city of Nanaimo, in Canada’s British Columbia.

As reported by Nanaimo News Now, Townsite Planning Inc. filed to develop a data center along East Wellington Road to the west of the Nanaimo Parkway.

The company aims to develop a single two-story data center totaling 18,000 sqm (193,750 sq ft) of floor space. The structure would contain 10 modular phases.

The land, at 2086/2090 East Wellington Road, is currently owned by 2779022 Ontario Ltd and is currently home to a single residential dwelling.

The site was rezoned to the High Tech Industrial (I3) zone with ‘data center’ permitted as a site-specific use back in 2022. The city council will consider a development permit for the facility at a future Council meeting.

Townsite Planning is a real estate services firm. Details on the intended user were not shared.

According to NNN, the owner of the site reportedly operates a similar facility in Hong Kong and has committed to grid operator BC Hydro that it will not to run data or crypto mining operations.

Nanaimo is located on the east side of Vancouver Island, across the Strait of Georgia and opposite Vancouver City.

While Vancouver has a number of data centers from multiple providers, Nanaimo has limited local digital infrastructure. Local IT services provider Intraworks operates one colocation data center out in the city that opened in 2009 out of its 5,000 sq ft (464 sqm) head office in the city.

There are currently no subsea cables serving the coastal city of Nanaimo. The nearest cable landing point is set to be Google’s Vancouver-to-Japan Topaz cable, which will land 40km northwest at Port Alberni.