US telecommunications giant Level 3 Communications is looking for tens of thousands of m2 of offices and 60.7 hectares of development land across Europe as part of its £11bn plan to construct a global data highway.
The company requires two-acre sites every 100 kilometres along its proposed inter-city network to house the highway’s hardware and software.
Level 3’s fibre-optic cable will surface on the Cornwall coast and run via London through the Channel Tunnel to major cities in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Healey & Baker has been appointed to negotiate rights of way for the highway and acquire sites along its route.
Jones Lang LaSalle has been appointed to look for offices in major cities along the highway to house Level 3’s internet service and content provider clients.
In London, Level 3 has already acquired three properties for this purpose: the Gordons Distillery site in Goswell Road (which has planning consent for 16,921m2; 5,874m2 in Braham Street, E1; and 10,405m2 at Kingsfield House, Prescot Street, E1.
In Amsterdam, the company has 9,290m2 of offices and will be looking for at least another 3,716m2 in each of its target cities.
Level 3, which already has about 92,900m2 under construction around the world, expects its property portfolio to grow significantly over the next two to three years as demand for data traffic explodes.
