admin The site, at 3094 E Vernon Avenue, marks a significant push into greater Los Angeles for both companies. DataBank, a colocation and interconnection operator with more than 70 data centres nationwide, will run the facility, while Goodman brings development expertise and a large global digital infrastructure pipeline. The partners are positioning the scheme as “AI-ready”, a phrase that has become shorthand for higher-density computing loads, stronger power requirements and customers willing to secure capacity well before delivery.
Los Angeles has become an increasingly difficult market for operators and tenants alike. Industry researchers say vacancy across major North American data-centre markets has fallen to record lows, with CBRE putting primary-market vacancy at 1.4 per cent at the end of 2025 and JLL describing a roughly 1 per cent vacancy rate for a second straight year. That broader squeeze has pushed customers towards pre-leasing, off-market deals and secondary locations with available power, even as construction activity remains high. Vernon, an industrial city south of downtown Los Angeles, fits that logic because it offers proximity to one of the country’s largest metro areas while still providing room for specialised infrastructure.
For DataBank, the venture expands a development pipeline that the company says now exceeds 850MW across major US markets including Dallas, New York, Atlanta, Kansas City, Houston and Northern Virginia. Chief executive Raul Martynek has argued that the combination of Goodman’s capital and development capability with DataBank’s operational platform should help the company move faster in constrained markets where timing and access to power matter as much as location. Los Angeles has long been attractive because it is a major consumption hub for media, cloud and network traffic, but it has also been one of the harder places in the country to add large blocks of capacity.
For Goodman, the deal underlines how far the Australia-listed property group has shifted towards digital infrastructure. The company said in its half-year results in February that its global power bank had grown to 6.0GW, with more projects moving through development and construction. Goodman has spent years repositioning itself away from a pure industrial and logistics landlord model and towards platforms tied more directly to the digital economy. The Vernon project gives it a stronger operating partner in the US market and a foothold in a region where supply bottlenecks have made developable sites more valuable.
The timing is notable. Data-centre investment remains one of the most crowded themes in real estate and infrastructure, but it is also facing sharper scrutiny over power access, construction costs and whether AI demand can translate into durable long-term leasing. Supporters of the sector point to surging computing needs, the expansion of cloud regions and the migration of enterprise workloads. Sceptics counter that some operators may be extrapolating too aggressively from today’s AI enthusiasm, particularly in markets where power upgrades, transmission constraints and local approvals can drag on for years.
Even so, the Vernon scheme appears designed to answer current buyer priorities. It is being marketed as scalable, high-density capacity rather than a conventional colocation build, suggesting both companies expect customers to demand more power per rack and quicker deployment options. Goodman’s project material indicates the site already has local planning progress and utility arrangements in place, a detail that matters in a market where available power can be more important than available land.
The project also reflects a wider shift in how digital infrastructure is being financed. Instead of building alone, developers and operators are increasingly pairing real-estate capital with specialist operating platforms, sharing risk while trying to accelerate delivery. In that sense, the DataBank-Goodman venture is less a standalone Los Angeles story than part of a broader industry pattern: capital providers want exposure to AI-led infrastructure growth, but they also want partners who understand how to lease, run and expand technically demanding facilities.
