Data center campus coming to county

GSMP

The need to house critical computer applications, information and data is greater now than ever. That’s why plans are underway for a large data center campus, on approximately 206 acres, to be constructed at the southeast corner of FM 2720 and Bob White Road, in Caldwell County.

Caldwell County Commissioners Court announced plans to offer financial incentives for the construction of a $1.3 billion turnkey datacenter by Prime Data Centers LLC during a special meeting on March 12.

“We are excited to have this project in Caldwell County,” said Caldwell County Judge, Hoppy Haden. “It brings a significant capital investment to our county without putting a significant strain on our resources both natural and our personnel.”

The developers, who are not operators, will construct multiple data center buildings on the site. Phase 1 of the development, known as Project Snow, will have a developer capital expenditure of $1.3 billion for 3 buildings. There will be a total of nine data centers on the site when all three phases are completed. The total capital expenditure at full buildout would be $4.2 billion. 

A total of 52 jobs will be created with an annual average wage of $78,000, which does not include additional benefits.

Phase 1 does not include the personal property investments made by the tenants of the building which have not been provided at this time. Each data center building is 262,000 square feet and two stories. Phase 1 square footage is 780,000 square feet. 

The developer has agreed to a 10-year, 100 percent property tax abatement with a Payment In-Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) roughly equal to 40 percent annually or $840,000 for all of Phase 1.