» VIEW ALL POSTS Feb 1 2012   11:21AM GMT

Property of “disgraced ex-media tycoon” becomes data center

Posted by: Beth Pariseau
data center

A property holdings company in the UK has an interesting hook to attract attention to its new £35 million ($56 million) data center — the property once belonged to a notorious celebrity.

PMB Holdings, a commercial real estate company founded by property developer Peter Beckwith, has demolished Maxwell House to make way for a new data center. Maxwell House was once the property of the late publishing executive and former Member of Parliament (MP) Robert Maxwell. Maxwell was the owner of an extensive publishing empire whose death in 1991 revealed wide-scale fraud.

The MK DataVault ”has been designed to offer a highly secure, risk free and resilient environment for the safe keeping of critical computer systems and vital telecom and storage components,” according to the company’s website. It boasts 0.6ms network latency between its location in Milton Keynes and London.

More interesting, though, is the florid language used by Beckwith to describe his company’s project as a kind of public service.

“The site holds many associations for me of my personal experiences of Robert Maxwell as a young solicitor,” Beckwith is quoted as saying in a press release. “And for many Milton Keynes residents the demolition of this building will help support the town in erasing his monstrous presence from this affluent area.”

Who knew building a data center could be so heroic?