A $1.4 billion data center campus is being built in Cedar Creek, and the developers already have plans for a second Bastrop County location.
“This would be one the largest data center campuses in the United States, if not the globe,” said Evan Pierce, vice president of site development for EdgeConneX. “This is going to be our marquee campus of all the campuses we have across the globe.”
Zooming in
Pierce shared plans for a second data center campus in Bastrop County during a March 26 panel that YTexas hosted at the Bastrop Convention and Exhibit Center. YTexas is a business network and consulting firm that assists companies expanding or relocating operations into or within the state of Texas.
“When we bought the property [at the intersection of Pearce Lane and Wolf Lane], we thought it would be a one-and-done,” Pierce said. “But the county here is amazing to work with and is such a great partner. We could tell right away. So we decided to start looking around for more land to buy.”
The second data center campus will be located on a nearly 180-acre property at 6682 FM 535 in Cedar Creek.
“I had told them, ‘If you guys ever decide to do another project, take a look at Bastrop first. Before you go anywhere else, give us an opportunity,’” Precinct 4 Commissioner David Glass said during the event. “Lo and behold, a few months later, we made another opportunity here.”
About the development
The first data center campus will take between five to eight years to complete and span 2.8 million square feet, as previously reported by Community Impact. However, the first of four buildings on that campus, located at the northeast corner of FM 535 and Wolf Lane in Cedar Creek, is scheduled to be completed in June, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The two-story data center facility, which began construction in August, will cost $440 million to build out its 578,000 square feet, according to the filing.
Who are the developers?
EdgeConneX has more than 80 data centers across nearly two dozen countries.
“We’re a data center developer, and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different folks,” Pierce said. “We go buy the land, we build the data center and then our employees are the ones that operate the data center. Then we lease out [cloud space]—so companies like Microsoft, Meta and Google."
Some background
Bastrop County Commissioners Court awarded EdgeConneX a 10-year property tax abatement based on project plans during a December 2024 meeting.
“We need more industry here to take the tax burden off our residents,” Glass said at the time.
That sentiment rang true during the YTexas panel, where he called these projects “once in a lifetime.”
“We were collecting $25,000 worth of property taxes on that raw land out there annually,” Glass said. “Now, we’re going to be collecting around $60 million for Bastrop ISD in the first year, somewhere around $7-8 million for Bastrop County and $5-7 million for the emergency services districts.”
Glass did not respond to Community Impact's inquiry into the second data center campus' economic impact as of press time.
What they’re saying
Pierce and Glass spoke about what they believe is often a misconception about data centers—water consumption.
“Twenty years ago was a different story with the water consumption,” Glass said. “Now, they have these new closed-loop systems, which use very, very little water. Once we fill it, it stays filled.”
Officials stated the first data center campus will use less water than the housing development previously planned for the location, as EdgeConneX requested 56 living unit equivalents, or LUEs, for their data center campus.
“I’m sure things will change and evolve as we move forward, but we are looking at 56 LUEs instead of 750,” Glass said. “That’s a big water reduction.”
The outlook
Bastrop County hired Philadelphia-based PFM Group Consulting to analyze budget and tax policies related to data center developments.
During a March 9 meeting, the Bastrop County commissioners approved a professional services agreement with PFM Group Consulting at a not-to-exceed value of $100,000 for the financial analysis and $9,000 for travel and reimbursable expenses, according to county documents.
“The county is interested in the long-term impact to the county’s tax base related to data center developments, including whether a proposed structure is in the county’s best interest over a 10-year, or other, period of time,” the professional services agreement says.
A targeted completion date for the financial analysis was not available as of press time.
