Real estate developer S+B Gruppe has secured planning permission to build a 12MW data center in Bucharest, southern Romania.

Named ‘NIMB,’ the firm said that it had received approval for a building permit and a grid connection request for the Tier III facility in the city’s northern office district.

The data center will provide 36,597 square feet (3,400sqm) of white space and is expected to open in 2028. DCD has approached S+B Gruppe for comment.

The firm said the new facility will be Bucharest’s first purpose-built data center (a claim made by at least one other operator). According to Data Centre Magazine, the project will aim to attract cloud providers, hyperscale operators, technology firms, and financial institutions as potential customers. Future tenants will also benefit from access to international network connections via all major carriers currently operating in Romania.

Founded in 1986 in Vienna, Austria, S+B Gruppe manages an estate of more than 414,000 sqm (4.4m sq ft) across central and eastern Europe and a total investment volume of €8.1 billion ($9.4bn). The construction of NIMB will mark its first foray into Romania’s data center market, the firm having previously specialised in office and residential developments.

It is a market that’s becoming increasingly crowded. According to DataCenterMap, Bucharest itself hosts at least 31 data centers. Several new projects have also been announced elsewhere in Romania, including an 80MW project by US technology firm DriverAI in the northwestern county of Cluj and a 70MW facility developed by industrial manufacturer Sany International in Timișoara, in western Romania. Belgian real estate firm Warehouses De Pauw also told DCD that it had a general interest in data center investments, amid unconfirmed reports that it was building two new facilities in Ilfov County, outside Bucharest.

Learn more about the data center market in Poland and Eastern Europe, and meet with other executives and experts from the region at the DCN Warsaw event later this year.