2 Huge Data Center Projects Pitched For Small Texas City

A massive new data center project in Temple, Texas, will likely begin construction this year after city officials granted the developers a key zoning approval. 

Temple’s city council approved a zoning request last week that will allow developer Rowan Green Data to build at least 135K SF of data center space on a 162-acre plot. The project is ultimately planned for up to 500 megawatts of data center capacity. 

The small Bell County city, which sits around midway between Austin and Waco, has a population of around 82,000 people. It has also been eyed by social media giant Meta within the last month for a 393-acre hyperscale data center campus.

The two developments will be a key injection of inventory into the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin data center markets. Despite low energy costs across Texas, the two markets, with a combined inventory of 770.5 MW, had only 28 megawatts under construction at the end of 2021, according to a JLL report. The firm attributed that low level to a lack of development-ready land following an industrial building boom in 2021.

Rowan, a joint venture between renewable energy investment fund Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and data center energy advisory firm Birch Infrastructure, stated in filings with the city that it expects the first phase of the project to be operational by 2023.

“We are thrilled to have Rowan Green Data expanding to Temple,” said Adrian Cannady, president and CEO of Temple Economic Development Corp., after the project was first announced in October. “Rowan is a welcome addition to our emerging technology sector.”

According to Rowan’s filings with city planning authorities, the company plans to first develop 33 acres of the 162 acres of former agricultural land approved for data centers. This first phase will carry a maximum capacity of 200 MW. But Rowan also holds a development option that will let the JV build out an additional 300 megawatts on the site’s remaining 142 acres at a later date.  

The company’s economic development agreement with the city mandates that Rowan begin construction within 12 months, invest at least $225M in the project, and build out water and wastewater infrastructure to support the facility. The city agreed to reimburse Rowan for almost $5M for the required water projects. The city council will discuss a tax abatement plan for the hyperscale campus in May. 

While Rowan has not disclosed any tenants for its Temple campus, the company is in the midst of rolling out around 1,200 MW of data center space across four sites in Texas — branded Project Longhorn — that the company website states will serve hyperscale, blockchain and other high-performance computing clients. Rowan is also pursuing a 45-megawatt project in Oregon and a 500-megawatt data center development in the San Francisco area. 

But Rowan’s planned campus isn’t the only big data center project coming to Temple. Meta announced in late March that the company formerly known as Facebook will build a 90K SF hyperscale facility on a 393-acre site near where Rowan plans to build. Construction on the $800M facility is expected to commence in the coming weeks, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Meta says its new Temple campus will use 100% renewable energy, part of around 700 megawatts the company claims to have helped develop around the state. And while Rowan has not announced specifics regarding its project’s use of renewables, both of the JV’s parent companies specialize in green energy procurement. Hyperscale data center development has been a key driver of renewables, often in areas like rural Texas where attitudes toward clean energy initiatives are less than favorable.