Director Strategy & Operations

City Hall roundup: Dallas eyes new data center rules, tackles old buildings and Fair Park funding. Running a city is partly about preparing for what comes next and partly about catching up with everything that has already happened. Officials at Dallas City Hall are doing a little of both right now, contending with new development pressures, old buildings, long-standing promises, and a budget that is leaving increasingly little room for surprises. Officials want to explore new data center rules in Dallas. Dallas could become the latest North Texas city to rethink how and where data centers are allowed. Council Member Chad West (District 1) filed a five-signature memo this week requesting that the city initiate a public hearing to discuss updating its development code to specifically address data centers. The hearing could consider amending existing regulations for "communications exchange facilities" and creating an entirely new land-use category for data centers. "There exist growing land use concerns over expanding this use throughout Dallas with very little tailored oversight," West said in the memo. "Currently, the closest land use in the development code that planning and development staff have to categorize these data centers is the local utility sub-use of communications exchange facility. Communications exchange facilities are allowed by right in many non residential and mixed-use zoning districts, and the regulations for this use fall short of a more modern local regulatory landscape." A hearing, which would be held within the next 30 days, comes as data centers become a land use flashpoint across Texas. Residents have challenged projects over electricity and water consumption, noise, and proximity to homes, while proponents point to new investment and property tax revenue. Dallas has so far seen less public controversy than several neigboring communities over data center construction, though developer Ray Washburne did threaten last year to sell the former Dallas Morning News headquarters downtown to a data center company after growing frustrated with the city over convention center redevelopment plans. The city ultimately purchased much of the property for $51 million. Other floated and real projects have garnered less attention. Equinix is developing an $836 million facility on Mockingbird Lane, and CBRE previously projected D-FW's data center market could double in size by the end of 2026. Crow Holdings is reportedly planning a 245-megawatt campus on roughly 40 acres along the Stemmons corridor, beginning with a 70-megawatt facility on vacant land. The larger redevelopment could eventually claim Dallas Market Hall, which has stopped booking future events as Crow Holdings evaluates the property's future. The rest of Dallas Market Center's wholesale complex, including the World Trade Center, is not part of the proposed redevelopment. "We need to better understand how this new land use fits into our city code," West said. "Many residents have concerns about data centers' energy and water use and compatibility in an urban environment. We need to make sure they are zoned and regulated appropriately rather than allowed by right." West's memo was signed by Council Members Zarin Gracey (District 3), Laura Cadena (District 6), Gay Donnell Willis (District 13), and Paul Ridley (District 14). City staff highlighted more than $14 million in recently completed facility improvements, even as the city continues wrestling with maintenance across its sprawling real estate portfolio. In a Friday memo, City Manager Kimberly Tolbert highlights work at five city-owned facilities, including Dallas Animal Services, the Dallas Museum of Art, Family Gateway shelter, and The Bridge shelter. Among the largest projects was an $8.2 million reconstruction of more than 21,000 square feet at the DMA after an August 2022 storm overwhelmed drainage at the Reves Gallery courtyard and damaged the Reves and C3 galleries. Reconstruction wrapped up June 30 after improvements to drainage and waterproofing. The city also spent $2.6 million replacing four aging rooftop HVAC units at Dallas Animal Services, where more than 500 HVAC-related service calls over five years had already generated more than $1 million in reactive repair costs. Replacement of the remaining five units is planned pending FY 2026-2027 funding. Another $3.4 million-plus went toward storm repairs and modernization at Family Gateway, while $700,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding addressed plumbing, appliances, fire suppression and laundry capacity at The Bridge. The city is also progressing with repairs at the Kleberg-Rylie Branch Library after a January freeze and flooding event damaged the facility. Facilities Management signed off on reconstruction of damaged walls and ceilings, which are expected to wrap up by late October. The improvements come as Dallas continues grappling with a much larger deferred maintenance problem. The city manages more than 500 properties totaling roughly 9.6 million square feet, with an average age of 47 years and a combined value of about $1.5 billion. Dallas has historically spent less than 1% of the portfolio's replacement value on maintenance, well below the 2-4% recommended under industry standards. Facilities officials estimated last year that another $15 million annually would be needed to bring spending up to that benchmark. Nowhere has the problem been more visible than Dallas City Hall, where years of underinvestment have contributed to problems ranging from water infiltration and aging elevators to outdated mechanical and electrical systems. Those problems have since become central to the debate over whether Dallas should pour potentially hundreds of millions of dollars into repairing 1500 Marilla St. or relocate municipal operations and redevelop the property. New TIF arrangement to support Community Park at Fair Park. Council members signed off on a tax increment financing agreement with the nonprofit Fair Park First on Wednesday, directing up to $3 million from the Deep Ellum TIF District to help close a funding gap for the long-promised 10.5-acre Community Park at Fair Park. Fair Park First has so far raised about $33.1 million through federal, state, and philanthropic sources, according to the city. The project is estimated to cost $40.6 million. Remaining funds are expected to be raised privately. "Community Park at Fair Park is more than a capital project - it's a commitment that delivers on a promise to the families and neighborhoods that have waited far too long for this meaningful investment," said Council Member Adam Bazaldua (District 7). "This park will create new opportunities, strengthen community pride, and build a healthier future for South Dallas." The arrangement comes after a turbulent few years for Fair Park First. The nonprofit previously managed the entire Fair Park campus before the city took day-to-day operations back in-house amid controversy over the use of restricted donor funds by subcontractor Oak View Group. Fair Park First has since assumed a narrower role focused on fundraising for and delivering the Community Park. Community Park itself has been promised to surrounding South Dallas neighborhoods for years. Frustration over repeated delays became so pronounced that the city council stripped the Dallas Park & Recreation Board of authority over the project. A subsequent agreement approved in February put Fair Park First in charge of designing, funding, and constructing it. Plans call for converting more than 10 acres of surface parking into green space with playgrounds, walking trails, shaded gathering areas, a fitness hub, market grove, community pavilion, and stage. The concept has evolved considerably since Fair Park First unveiled earlier plans in 2023. Construction is now anticipated to begin later this year, with completion targeted for December 2028. City staff health plan targeted in proposed budget. Dallas employees and retirees will have fewer health insurance options next year if City Manager Kimberly Tolbert's proposed budget gets adopted. "Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased sharply nationwide," said Tolbert. "Without adjustments, an increasing share of City of Dallas resources would be directed to health care costs rather than essential city services, employee compensation, and staffing." Under Tolbert's proposed FY 2026-2027 budget, Dallas would discontinue its current PPO health plan beginning in January 2027 while retaining two Blue Cross Blue Shield options: an HSA plan and a PCP plan. Tolbert said many employees already participate in the two plans that will remain. Officials also estimate about 90% of providers in the existing PPO network will still be available through those plans. Medical costs have emerged as a persistent strain on the city budget. Back in April, the city projected its employee health plan fund would exceed this year's budget by $13.8 million because of higher medical and pharmacy claims. Staff said 116 employees had generated medical claims exceeding $100,000, while pharmacy expenses were being pushed higher by specialty medications and GLP-1 drugs. Those costs, coupled with disappointing sales tax revenues and higher public safety spending, contributed to a roughly $30 million current-year budget shortfall that prompted Tolbert to impose mandatory furloughs on many non-uniform employees and selective hiring freezes this summer. Before open enrollment, Dallas plans to hold virtual and in-person sessions to help PPO participants navigate the change. Tolbert said the city will continue evaluating its health benefits over the coming year with an eye toward balancing employee needs against the program's long-term financial sustainability. Visit SecondShelters.com

Equinix scales Johannesburg data centre to 24MW - but its r7.5bn expansion land sits undeveloped. 14 August 2026 Updated:14 August 2026 4 Mins Read Equinix is scaling its Johannesburg 1 data centre to 24MW to meet growing AI and cloud demand - while holding back development on land it has bought in Johannesburg and Cape Town until it sees whether that demand materialises. The US digital infrastructure company entered South Africa in 2024 with a $160 million investment in JN1, its first international business exchange facility in the country, located in Germiston on the East Rand near OR Tambo International Airport. Phase one is complete at 4MW, with two further phases of 10MW each planned. "Since inception, we've received a great reception from the South African market," said Sandile Dube, managing director for South Africa at Equinix, in an interview with ITWeb during a tour of the facility. Budget allocated, ground not broken Equinix has earmarked R7.5 billion for South African expansion and acquired additional land in Johannesburg and Cape Town earlier this year. Dube was direct that neither site is under development. "The additional land parcels give us the option to expand over a period of time as the business evolves and demand develops," he said. The immediate focus remains the phased build-out of Johannesburg 1, with later capacity additions dependent on customer requirements. That posture is worth noting against the run of South African data centre announcements this year. Cape Town approved two hyperscale facilities totalling around 174MW three weeks ago. Durban's council approved exploratory agreements for a project referenced at 400MW. Microsoft has committed more than R26 billion across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and a planned Centurion facility. Equinix's full Johannesburg build, at 24MW, amounts to roughly one-seventh of what Cape Town waved through in a single sitting - and two-thirds of it is conditional. For a company with the balance sheet to move faster, the sequencing reads as a judgement about how quickly South African enterprise demand will actually arrive. Designed for AI from the start Dube said AI is shaping how Equinix provisions its South African infrastructure, with Johannesburg 1 built for the power and cooling densities AI workloads require, including liquid-cooling infrastructure. "We've been quite fortunate in that we are relatively new in the South African market and therefore the facility that we are in today has been designed and built with that in mind," he said. That timing advantage is real. Turner & Townsend's data centre construction cost index identified 2025 as the inflexion point from air-cooled cloud facilities to high-density liquid-cooled builds for AI - and found that 83% of industry leaders surveyed considered local supply chains unprepared for the specialised materials, equipment and expertise advanced cooling demands. Operators retrofitting existing halls face that constraint directly. Equinix does not. Johannesburg is the third most expensive African market for data centre construction at $10.06 per watt, behind Lagos at $10.50 and Cape Town at $10.33, according to the same index. Interconnection over colocation Dube was insistent the proposition is not straightforward colocation. Equinix positions JN1 as an access point to a global ecosystem of more than 10,500 customers spanning cloud providers, systems integrators and connectivity companies. "South Africa is already the gateway to the rest of Africa," he said, citing the country's position between the Atlantic and Indian oceans and its comparatively developed digital infrastructure. The South African approach also differs from Equinix's West African entry, which came via acquisition. In South Africa the company built greenfield, with Johannesburg 1 as the foundation. Africa accounts for roughly 1% of the world's data centres. McKinsey projects continental capacity needs to rise from about 0.4 gigawatts to as much as 2.2 gigawatts by 2030. Whether that materialises depends less on announced budgets than on how many operators, having secured the land, decide the demand justifies breaking ground.

Equinix launches Managed Solutions in Australia. Equinix | Published 12 Aug 2026 COMPANY NEWS: New service helps organisations address IT skills shortages, reduce infrastructure complexity, and optimise technology costs Equinix today announced the availability of Equinix Managed Solutions (EMS) in Australia, giving organisations a new way to simplify increasingly complex IT operations while reducing infrastructure management overheads. As Australian organisations accelerate AI adoption, cloud modernisation, and hybrid IT strategies, many are facing growing pressure to manage increasingly complex infrastructure while controlling costs, overcoming specialist IT skills shortages, and meeting evolving security and compliance requirements. EMS addresses these challenges by combining enterprise-grade digital infrastructure with fully managed compute, storage, and AI solutions. Rather than purchasing, provisioning and managing infrastructure themselves, organisations can consume these capabilities as a service, allowing internal teams to focus on innovation and business growth. The launch comes as Australian organisations continue to invest heavily in digital transformation and AI. Gartner forecasts IT spending in Australia will exceed A$172 billion in 2026, an increase of 8.9% from 2025. This includes continued investment in data centre systems, software and AI optimised infrastructure. "Many organisations are reaching a point where traditional approaches to managing infrastructure can no longer keep pace with the demands of AI, hybrid cloud and increasing cyber security requirements," said Joseph Crawford, Vice President, Equinix Managed Solutions. "Owning infrastructure is no longer where organisations create value; value comes from what they build on top of it. "EMS simplifies IT operations, optimises infrastructure costs and accelerates digital transformation, allowing organisations to focus on the applications, data and experiences that differentiate their business while Equinix manages the underlying infrastructure." EMS helps organisations overcome many of today's most common infrastructure challenges, including lengthy hardware procurement cycles, escalating public cloud costs, ongoing infrastructure refresh requirements and shortages of specialist IT skills. By shifting operational responsibility to Equinix, customers can bring new projects online faster, move from capital expenditure to predictable operating expenditure, optimise workload placement across hybrid environments and free internal teams to focus on strategic initiatives. For organisations operating in highly regulated industries, EMS also supports data sovereignty, governance and compliance requirements by giving customers greater control over where workloads and data reside, while maintaining the flexibility of a modern cloud operating model. The EMS portfolio includes managed private cloud, storage and managed AI factory services, together with implementation services for Equinix Fabric and Network Edge - it is backed by enterprise service level agreements, and includes global 24/7 monitoring, proactive maintenance, software updates, optimisation and support through to the operating system layer. The EMS portfolio includes: * Managed Private Cloud - A fully managed private cloud platform available in single-tenant or multi-tenant configurations to suit different performance, scalability and budget requirements. * Managed Private Storage - Managed block, file and object storage with encryption, ransomware protection and data replication capabilities. * Managed AI Factory - Customer supplies the GPUs and hardware, Equinix provides end-to-end infrastructure management for dedicated AI infrastructure: computing, storage and networking - deployed in private Equinix environments with day-2 operations and support. * Managed Private Backup - Comprehensive backup services with flexible retention policies and off-site data protection. * Enablement Services - Professional implementation services to accelerate deployment of Equinix Fabric virtual connections and selected Network Edge services. Customers retain full ownership and control of their data, with privileged access carefully managed while benefiting from advanced security capabilities built into the service. EMS is designed for organisations across industries including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, government, technology and digital media that are looking to simplify IT operations, optimise infrastructure costs and accelerate digital transformation. More information about Equinix Managed Solutions can be found here.