An application for Project Tomahawk, a $580 million data center proposed for 37.3 acres near the intersection of FM 1385 and Parvin Road, received pushback from Prosper officials.
The Prosper Planning and Zoning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend denial of the project at a Sept. 1 meeting.
“I just don’t think this development fits the long-term strategic vision of the town,” Commissioner Brett Butler said.
White Rose Partners, the developer behind the proposal, applied to rezone the property from agricultural uses to a planned development that would allow a data center to be built on the land.
Residents and non-residents spoke in opposition to the project for over an hour, including Mayor David Bristol, who spoke against Project Tomahawk as a private citizen.
As of Sept. 1, it was unclear whether the developers would choose to pursue the application further.
About the project
The proposed facility would be roughly 225,000 square feet and would occupy about 20% of the property, said David Hoover, Prosper’s director of Development Services.
White Rose Partners was primarily attracted to the site because of its proximity to an existing Brazos Electric Power Cooperative substation that borders the property to the southeast, according to project representatives.
The developers would pay for any necessary upgrades incurred by the data center’s usage, according to a website published by White Rose Partners.
The data center itself would be a single building with a maximum height of 40 feet, plus an additional 20 feet for rooftop equipment, according to town documents.
It would use a closed-loop design to limit water usage, per town documents. On an annual basis, the data center is expected to use roughly half the amount of water as a typical single-family home in Prosper, Jeff Eigenbrood, a managing partner at White Rose Partners, said.
The planned development would set a limit of 65 decibels for noise emanating from the site, according to the proposal. The maximum noise level would fall between the noise generated by an air conditioner and a vacuum cleaner, according to Commissioner Glen Blanscet.
White Rose Partners estimates the data center would create 20-50 permanent jobs and generate up to $2.5 million in annual revenue for the town of Prosper through sales and franchise tax, White Rose Partners representative John Varin said.
The application also includes a section intended for a future business park, per town documents.
Sorting out details
During the meeting, commissioners had multiple questions about the exact noise levels, power consumption and permitted uses in the planned development.
Many of the exact details of the project would not be finalized until later in the development process, project representatives said.
For example, White Rose Partners would not be able to secure a tenant for the data center until the project receives initial approval, and the setup of the data center could change based on the user’s needs, representatives said.
The square footage of the project could also change depending on the amount of power the developers are able to secure, Eigenbrood said.
Other aspects of Project Tomahawk will fluctuate based on the nature of the project.
Noise, which is generally produced by the HVAC system needed to cool the building, will vary based on environmental factors like outside temperature, according to project representatives.
Additional noise would be created by backup generators in the case of power outage, which can also be unpredictable, representatives said.
“We need much more detail in terms of all these aspects,” Commissioner Glen Blanscet said. “We’re just not ready.”
Quote of note
“I urge this body to deny this zoning case and deny the change to the Future Land Use Plan tonight,” Mayor David Bristol said.
Bristol asked the commission to deny the application because officials lack guidelines for data centers at the local and state level.
Governor Greg Abbott paused the approval of new data center projects pending an audit of all data centers seeking to connect to the power grid, which is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
State legislators also said at a Sept. 1 legislative hearing that they intend to propose tighter regulations on data centers during the 2027 legislative session.
Bristol stressed that he would not receive any direct or indirect financial benefits from the project, and he stated that while he is sympathetic to residents of neighboring properties, his responsibility is to the residents of Prosper.
“My obligation—the one I swore an oath to—runs to the residents of the town of Prosper,” he said.
Those opposed
Katie Murray, a Democratic precinct chair in the Union Park neighborhood of Little Elm, began reaching out to her fellow Democratic precinct chairs in the area around the proposed site once she saw White Rose Partners’s marketing website, she said.
The group reached out to their counterparts across the aisle, forming a group chat made up of 11 Republican and Democratic precinct chairs from Pilot Point, Celina, Aubrey and Little Elm, Murray said.
“It’s a completely bipartisan effort,” she said.
Murray and her cohorts formed Prosper Residents for Responsible Land Use and set up a website advocating against the data center, www.zonewisely.com. Their petition received over 1,600 signatures as of Sept. 1, Murray said.
While some who have organized against Project Tomahawk oppose data centers entirely, Murray said her main issues with the project are the lack of specificity in the terms of the planned development and the lack of communication with residents who live near the site but do not live within the Prosper town limits.
“That feels sneaky, and even if that’s not the intent, that's how it comes across,” she said.
Offering input
Republican precinct chair Aileen Blakowski, a Prosper resident who is also affiliated with the www.zonewisely.com website, was among those who spoke against Project Tomahawk for over an hour.
“My constituents reached out to me because they saw this in the news and they were very concerned about it,” she said.
Common themes in speakers’ opposition included concerns regarding:
- Water usage
- Power consumption
- Noise levels
- Property values
Several speakers questioned the accuracy of the studies commissioned by White Rose Partners, particularly studies related to the expected noise level produced by the facility.
“You all need to have independent people come and do the tests,” Aubrey resident Nicholas Strain said.
Out of three people who spoke in favor of the project, two said their support was conditional on stricter development standards and a promise to set concrete guidelines for data center projects in Prosper going forward.
Town staff also received over 400 written comments in opposition to Project Tomahawk prior to the meeting, Commissioner Josh Carson said.
Next steps
Project Tomahawk is scheduled to go before Prosper Town Council on Sept. 8.
Eigenbrood declined to make an immediate comment on whether White Rose Partners will choose to go forward with the application following the recommendation of denial.
