Generous space reserved for Data Centre at new Library
Last week’s City Council Committee meeting is reported to have accepted a recommendation that the Joint Venture Group in the proposed Data Centre at the new Library not be held to the original terms of the lease. Under the original agreement, lease on the premises was due to commence on May 1 2009, but according to the Committee agenda, the Joint Venture Group is now asking for an indefinite rent free period to enable completion of designs and costings, engagement of contractors, and work on fitting out the building to be completed.
Acceptance of the recommendation by Council will put the commencement of the lease on an indefinite footing, with a loss of rental income to ratepayers in the order of $7300 per month, not including contributions to capital costs. The recommendation suggested the lease might commence around September 1, 2009 but under the terms of the recommendation to Council, they will be able to take as long as they like.
Ken Weary, Executive Manager of Corporate Services for the City of Bunbury, acknowledged that ISA Technologies Pty Ltd, one of the Companies referred to in the Committee agenda as a partner in the joint venture, was a fiction. However Ken assured Podport that, in terms of the lease documents, the City was dealing with real Companies, and the reference to the fictitious Company must have been a drafting error in the agenda. “There seems to have been an amalgam of the business name and the Company which registered it. Isa Technologies is the business name, and ISA Pty Ltd is the Company.”
Real or fiction, no one from the Joint Venture Group has yet responded to Bunbury Podport’s request for interview. Meanwhile, it is unclear what benefits are expected to accrue to the City or the region from the Data Centre on completion.
During the rent free period the City is expected to continue to maintain the specialised equipment installed to service the Datacentre, including a 635kva generator switch gear and uninterrupted power module and a 60 kilowatt air conditioning system.