Goodman Group withdrew its application to build a data centre in the Lane Cove area of Sydney following community opposition to the project, ABC News reported. The proposed facility, known as Project Mars, was valued at A$1.2 billion and had a capacity of 90 megawatts. The planning application received 374 submissions during consultation, with only nine in support.
Goodman Group, Australia's biggest property company, confirmed its withdrawal to the NSW Department of Planning. The company said it had begun the planning process in March 2025 and conducted technical investigations, stakeholder engagement and community consultation throughout, but concluded it would not proceed once it weighed community feedback against a regulatory environment that had changed materially. The NSW government announced a fast-track program for data centres, allowing assessment within 75 days provided the applicant funds additional water and energy supply.
Separately, Australian company Firmus Technologies is preparing to list on the ASX with an IPO intended to raise $7 billion from investors. The Firmus IPO is projected to be the second-largest on record in Australia, behind Telstra's $14 billion share sale in 1997.
At the time Launceston councillors approved the St Leonards facility, Firmus was valued at just under $2 billion in a private funding round. The implied valuation of Firmus has since risen toward a targeted ASX debut valuation of $40 billion or more, with some investment analysts citing figures as high as $100 billion.
Firmus currently operates two facilities, one in Melbourne and one in Singapore, with most of its development pipeline unbuilt. The company's draft prospectus forecasts $5 billion in annual earnings once its development pipeline is completed.
Nvidia acts as both an investor in and hardware supplier to Firmus. New York-based firms Blackstone and Jane Street are among the company's early backers.
At the first hearing of a federal Senate inquiry examining data centres and artificial intelligence, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson applied repeated pressure on Goodman Group's general manager of developments, Ben McGilp, to pull the Project Mars proposal immediately, calling it a wholly unreasonable development that showed contempt for local residents. Sweltering Cities senior campaigner Sanaa Shah told ABC News she was pleased the development had been shelved, describing the outcome as a demonstration of widespread community resistance to data centres forming across Australia. Anthony Roberts, a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly representing Lane Cove, described the withdrawal as a win for the Lane Cove West community and said the outcome sent a message to other data centre developers to identify suitable locations before submitting proposals.
Firmus's St Leonards, Tasmania data centre has a capacity of 104 megawatts, carries an estimated value of $2.1 billion, and was granted fast-tracked approval by Launceston's city council in September last year, with no public hearing held. Major backers such as Blackstone face no escrow obligations, leaving them able to offload holdings the moment the company lists.
Rob Talevski, chief executive of Webull Securities Australia, said retail investors may effectively serve as the liquidity exit for early institutional investors, and that this risk was not discussed enough. An investment manager described Firmus's $5 billion earnings forecast as a little bit of a fairytale, characterising it as a capital-hungry business that needed to continually raise debt or equity while still recording losses.
Retail investors in the Firmus IPO face the risk of buying shares at elevated prices created by limited early supply, with institutional backers including Blackstone under no escrow obligation and able to sell immediately after listing. Data centre developers in Australia face an evolving regulatory environment, with new state and anticipated federal rules changing the conditions under which projects are assessed.
Reporting: The Guardian, BBC, ABC News
Written by Pick & Scroll News from the reporting and documents linked above.
