ANS ditches Sharp Project data centre plan

MANCHESTER-based ANS Group has abandoned its ambition to run its own data centre, citing the costs involved.

The IT reseller and hosting firm has pulled the plug on a planned £8m investment at The Sharp Project which promised to create 100 jobs.

Its intentions were announced a year ago and the company had hoped to have the 20,000 sq ft facility at the Newton Heath creative and digital base finished by March.

But it has admitted that such a move would have been too capital intensive and it will now expand cloud computing services by renting space with data centre companies such as Manchester-based M247.

ANS was founded as an IT reseller but in recent years it has moved into cloud computing – where data is stored remotely on the internet.

It had hoped to agree a 15-year lease at The Sharp Project and double the size of the site to 40,000 sq ft over three years. Agent CBRE has been looking for a data centre tenant to complement more than 50 companies specialising in digital media production. The Sharp Project also has four sound stages used by TV drama and film producers.

In a statement ANS’s managing director Paul Sweeney said: “The growth of our cloud services led us to reappraise our data centre strategy and we took the decision to partner with trusted third party providers instead of committing to our own infrastructure, which would be capital intensive and may not provide the flexibility we need to best serve our clients.

“This decision has meant that we are able to achieve the best possible efficiencies for our clients and maintain low-cost, high quality service provision. We continue to support the Sharp Project and other initiatives in the region that champion Manchester as an important European technology hub.”

ANS employs nearly 200 staff and recorded a pre-tax profit of £3.1m on sales of £44m in the year to March. The business was founded by chairman Scott Fletcher whose father worked at the Sharp building when it was a Sharp Electronics warehouse.

Manchester City Council, which owns the Sharp Project, had been negotiating with ANS on the potential letting.

A spokesperson said: “Negotiations have come to an end with ANS on the data centre space at The Sharp Project. However, our strategy remains the same and the city council is currently in discussions with another third party.” 

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