Space Industry Campus Location North Of Austin Being Finalized
Developers are zeroing in on a Cedar Park location for a highly anticipated research and development campus aimed at aiding the space industry, according to the Austin Business Journal.
The project is being led by the Central Texas Spaceport Development Corp.
The campus is estimated to cost between $78M and $108M and will serve as an innovation hub, supporting space exploration, defense tech and advanced research, according to the ABJ report.
It will include space to plan missions and a secure compartmented information facility as well as room for building and testing spacecraft and defense systems. In addition, there will be office space and an education center.
The CTSDC launched in 2025, backed by the city of Cedar Park and Williamson County. It is the sixth spaceport development corporation formed in Texas. The others are in Houston, Cameron County, Midland, West Texas and South Texas.
These entities are special-purpose economic development organizations created to help plan and fund future spaceports.
The future Cedar Park campus would be dubbed the Central Texas Spaceport and Defense Innovation Campus. It would be developed in partnership between the CTSDC, the University of Texas’ Cockrell School of Engineering and private entities in the commercial aerospace and defense spaces.
The campus will span 115K SF across four buildings. The development team hopes to break ground on Phase I later this year. The project will begin with the development of a 20K SF standalone building to house a secure information facility. This first build-out is estimated to cost between $24.5M and $33M.
Plans for Phase 2 include a 40K SF environmental test facility costing between $22M and $30M. Phase 3 would include the build-out of a 35K SF building costing between $24M and $25M.
The 20K SF education campus, including offices, incubator suites, coworking areas and classrooms, has an expected cost of between $7M and $10M, the ABJ reported.
News of the development comes amid renewed public interest in space exploration. The crew of the Artemis II lunar mission returned to Houston on Saturday.
Last month, billionaire Elon Musk proposed a semiconductor fabrication hub for the Austin area as the first part of a proposed $20B Terafab project he said is needed to boost computing power for future space travel.
Other counties and municipalities have made moves to capitalize on the recent push for more space exploration. The Hays Caldwell Economic Development Partnership launched an incubator program for space companies last month in San Marcos, and SpaceX announced in February it is expanding its operations in Bastrop.
