P3 has taken over the former Großauheim barracks in Hanau from the Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (Institute for Federal Real Estate). P3 will now develop a large-scale data centre campus, the P3 Datacenter Hanau, on the 250,000 sqm site. Climate protection and energy efficiency play a central role in the design. The campus will be built and operated sustainably and supplied with 100 per cent green electricity.
The construction of the campus will take place in several phases, with at least eight data centre modules with a building area of about 200,000 square metres being built over a period of ten years. The project is a so-called brownfield development: here, P3 decontaminates the site of the Großauheim barracks, which has been vacant since 2008, carries out the deconstruction, recycles the current building stock and uses the materials for ground works.
A connected load of 180 megawatts is planned for the data centre campus. For sustainable operation, P3 has agreed sustainability goals with the city of Hanau and committed to their implementation. This includes that the P3 Datacenter will be completely supplied with electricity from renewable energy sources already with the commissioning of the first module. In addition, special attention will be paid to energy efficiency and the balancing and reduction of CO2 emissions. For this purpose, among other things, corresponding data will be transmitted annually to the city and the consumption of all resources will be monitored via an energy management system.
To protect the local flora and fauna, P3 implements species protection measures. These include the establishment of compensation areas and the relocation of animals in need of protection. In addition, P3 is creating further suitable habitats, such as swift towers and bat roosts, and is greening the project area.
Soenke Kewitz, Managing Director P3 Logistic Parks Germany, says: “The e-commerce boom and increasing teleworking are making it increasingly clear how important data centres are for all of us. Without them, advancing digitalisation is not possible and the need to meet this demand with a green alternative is enormous. We are very pleased to be able to develop such a future-proof solution with the P3 Datacenter Hanau in close cooperation with the city.”
Claus Kaminsky, Lord Mayor of the City of Hanau, says: “The development of the former Großauheim barracks into a data centre campus that is also very large by international standards represents for us the centrepiece of the implementation of our data centre strategy. The joint development and binding definition of sustainability goals beyond the generally accepted level – for example, half of the energy will be fed from local regenerative sources – was particularly important to us, also due to the size of the campus in its final development.”
The construction of a combined heat and power plant by Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Hanau GmbH und Co. KG is also planned on the campus. This will ensure a climate-friendly district heating supply for Hanau from 2024 after the supply contracts with the Staudinger power plant expire. A transformer station is also being built on the project site by the local grid operator Hanau Netz GmbH.
Semir Selcukoglu, Head of Datacenter P3 Logistic Parks, says: “Our project in Hanau will be one of the largest data centre campuses in Europe. The exciting question we faced during the development was: how can we reconcile a large-scale data centre and the challenges associated with climate change? I am particularly proud that we found a trend-setting solution in dialogue with the city of Hanau. I look forward with great anticipation to the further development of the project, which is equivalent to an area of 35 football fields and will be powered entirely by green electricity. In addition, the project will have no negative impact on the land balance of the Rhine-Main area, as it is an already sealed area formerly used for military purposes.”
Claus Niebelschuetz, Head of Sales at the Institute for Federal Real Estate, comments: “The construction of the P3 Data Centre Hanau on the site of the former Großauheim barracks is the result of a cooperative collaboration between P3 Logistic Parks, the Institute for Federal Real Estate and the city of Hanau and at the same time another important step in the conversion process in Hanau, in which the former US properties are being put to a civilian, future-oriented subsequent use.”
The development of the data centre campus is speculative. The utilisation concept is designed for established data centre operators as tenants. The city of Hanau itself is a particularly attractive location due to its proximity to the DE-CIX internet hub in Frankfurt.
P3 was supported in the brokerage of the property by the international real estate consultant CBRE, A&T Industrial & Logistics division, led by Rainer Koepke, and was legally advised on the purchase by the law firm Noerr, led by Dr Alexander Jänecke and Dr Tim Behrens.
