Summary
- S+B Gruppe has planning permission for its 12MW NIMB data-centre project in northern Bucharest.
- The Tier III-targeted scheme is expected to provide around 3,400 square metres of white space and open in 2028.
- The project has reached planning-permission stage, while final grid-connection status remains a key delivery dependency.
Austrian property developer S+B Gruppe has secured planning permission for a 12MW data centre in northern Bucharest, extending its Central and Eastern European property portfolio into purpose-built digital infrastructure.
S+B Gruppe is developing the project under the NIMB name near Bucharest’s Pipera business district. The facility is planned with approximately 3,400 square metres of technical white space and is targeting Tier III standards, with completion expected in 2028.
The project is being developed on land already controlled by S+B. Earlier plans for the site had focused on conventional commercial property, making NIMB another example of a European developer redirecting land towards data centre use as demand for digital infrastructure changes the economics of established real-estate assets.
Planning permission is confirmed, while the project’s final electrical position remains to be clarified. Reporting on 10 September said S+B had submitted a grid-connection request, so the development should not yet be treated as having secured operational capacity.
That distinction is material. A building permit establishes that a project can advance through construction subject to its conditions, but an operational data centre requires firm electrical capacity, connection works, and a delivery timetable that aligns with the construction programme.
Bucharest pipeline continues to broaden
NIMB would add a new operator and development model to an established Bucharest data centre market. The Romanian capital already contains a sizeable base of colocation and connectivity facilities, while a number of larger schemes are being proposed both in and outside Bucharest.
S+B’s project is modest compared with some of the very large hyperscale proposals now appearing across Europe, but its 12MW installed-power figure is substantial enough to require serious attention to electrical and mechanical design. Reporting has put planned IT capacity at about 6.7MW, although that figure has not been independently confirmed by a primary project document available to DataCentral.
The facility is expected to target cloud providers, technology companies, financial institutions, and other customers requiring secure colocated infrastructure. Bucharest’s position as Romania’s largest business and connectivity market gives it an established customer base, while proximity to major carrier networks is part of the project’s commercial case.
S+B was founded in Vienna and has traditionally focused on offices, hotels, residential property, and large development projects across Central and Eastern Europe. Company filings show that it had been examining data centre opportunities before the current Bucharest announcement, including projects elsewhere in the region.
NIMB therefore looks less like a one-off conversion and more like an extension of an existing real-estate development model into an infrastructure asset class where land, grid access, and planning permissions can be as important as the building itself.
The project’s 2028 target gives S+B roughly two years to convert its planning position into construction, power delivery, mechanical and electrical procurement, and customer commitments. Transformer availability, switchgear, generators, cooling equipment, and grid works can all sit on long lead times for European developments, meaning the permitting milestone is only one part of the delivery programme.
Romania is attracting greater attention as developers look beyond Europe’s most constrained established data centre hubs. Bucharest offers connectivity, a large domestic technology sector, and lower land costs than markets such as Frankfurt or London, but new capacity still depends on power availability and the ability of the local network to accommodate concentrated loads.
The next useful milestone for NIMB will be clarification of its grid position. If capacity is fully secured, the scheme has moved beyond a significant development risk. If the project is still working through a connection request, the electrical timetable will remain a central dependency for the planned 2028 opening.
