- What Two industrial land parcels in Milton are back on the market
- Why Compass Datacenters planned to purchase 110 developable acres last year
- What next Lennard Commercial Realty is now marketing the sites
Two large land parcels in Ontario – the bulk of which drew an offer for $220m last year as a data-centre development play – are back on the market, Green Street News can reveal.
Lennard Commercial Realty is marketing 142 acres at the intersection of Derry Road and Sixth Line, in Milton. The larger parcel, at 7314 Sixth Line, is 86 acres, while a plot at 11515 Derry Road totals 56 acres. Both sites belong to M. Putzer Hornby Nursery, a 450-acre commercial agricultural operation owned by the Putzer family. The addresses had previously been marketed by Lee & Associates.
While it’s unknown how much the family is asking for, Compass Datacenters had been in talks last summer to acquire 110 developable acres across the two parcels for $220m, priced at $2m/acre. Compass had planned to develop a 300-megawatt data centre at the site at a estimated cost of $250m.
The total purchase under discussion was for 280 acres, but Compass – co-owned by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan – ultimately walked away from the deal. Sources familiar with the negotiations told Green Street News at the time that talks broke down over power-connectivity concerns.
Similar concerns had been expressed by Microsoft, which had taken a long look at the Putzer lands prior to Compass, but ultimately declined to make an offer.
Lennard is now touting the parcels as a rare investment opportunity to acquire industrial land suitable for a warehousing or distribution operation. The land is adjacent to a core industrial node for the area, where the tenant base includes DSV, Kraft Heinz and DHL. There is enough land to place six new large industrial buildings on the parcels, ranging from 110,000 sq ft to 926,000 sq ft.
The parcels are 4km from an on-ramp to Highway 407, which connects to prominent regional transportation corridors such as Highway 401. Toronto Pearson International Airport is 22km away.
The land offering last year had been dubbed a “unicorn” for its large size and prime location in the Greater Toronto Area, as well as its proximity to an existing hydro corridor with an expandable power capacity of 3,000 megawatts. Had the Compass sale gone through, it would have been among the highest-valued land deals for data-centre development in Canadian history, sources said.
