Market update · September 9, 2026 · Steven Owen

Austin-area data center activity: Bastrop, Williamson & Hays County tracker

The scorecard

Bastrop County: Cedar Creek becomes a cluster

Cedar Creek went from one project to a cluster in about eighteen months. EdgeConneX bought its first site at Pearce Lane and Wolf Lane expecting, in its own words, a “one-and-done,” then went looking for more land after the county proved easy to work with. The first building — a two-story, 578,000-square-foot, $440 million facility that broke ground in August 2025 — was scheduled for June 2026 completion per its TDLR filing, and by late July the company described it as nearly complete. The full four-building, 2.8 million-square-foot campus is a five-to-eight-year build. A second campus on roughly 180 acres at 6682 FM 535 was announced in March, and by July EdgeConneX was describing three Cedar Creek campuses spanning nearly 1,500 acres and 19 buildings.

The fiscal argument the county made is worth quoting because it is the argument every commissioners court in Central Texas is now weighing. Precinct 4 Commissioner David Glass said the EdgeConneX land had been generating about $25,000 a year in property tax as raw land; his projection for year one of the campus was roughly $60 million for Bastrop ISD, $7–8 million for the county, and $5–7 million for the emergency services districts. Water was framed the same way: the data center requested 56 living-unit equivalents versus 750 for the housing subdivision previously planned on the site.

Amazon Data Services then closed on 1,229 acres off SH 21 West on May 1 — land CTX Capital Partners had earmarked for the Creekside master-planned community, about three miles southwest of EdgeConneX. Amazon has confirmed the purchase but says it has not made a final development decision. That is a familiar hyperscaler posture: control the dirt first, decide later.

The third piece is the one that moved most recently. Pacifico Energy filed a JETI application with the Texas Comptroller for a 2,842-acre site on Earl Callahan Road pairing a data center campus with a 710 MW natural-gas plant serving about 490 MW of computing load behind the meter — a roughly $2.24 billion power investment, with 25 permanent jobs listed. It requested 100% Chapter 312 abatements from the county and two ESDs. After a July 22 town hall drew more than 100 residents and a petition against the abatements, the county announced on August 20 that both county abatement applications had been withdrawn the day before. The county was explicit that the development itself has not been canceled and that mass-grading permits remain in review; the developer told the Comptroller it is also weighing a site in Ohio whose local moratorium expires in February 2027.

Bastrop County has no moratorium and, under Texas law, little authority to impose one; Hill County rescinded its own after a developer sued. What the county has done is hire PFM Group Consulting (approved March 9, not to exceed $100,000) to study the long-term tax-base effect of data centers, and draft revised abatement guidelines requiring environmental disclosure and a local-hire component of at least 25 full-time jobs with 25% county residents.

Williamson County: the I-35 east corridor

Williamson County is the largest concentration in the metro. A June 2026 survey counted 30 operational or planned data centers on nine campuses — nearly half of the roughly 70 projects across the five-county Austin MSA. The geography is unambiguous: nine facilities on three campuses in Round Rock, five on two sites in Hutto, one each in Georgetown and Jarrell, and 14 on three campuses in Taylor. None are west of I-35. The Williamson County Economic Development Partnership attributes the pattern to the electric infrastructure built out for Samsung’s Taylor fab — “it’s about the availability of power.”

Eight of the 30 are operating today — six in Round Rock, two in Hutto — with a combined capacity of about 500 MW. Full buildout over several decades would reach 1.6 to 1.9 GW, with the three Taylor campuses alone accounting for roughly half. Named projects include Sabey (one operating, one under construction, one planned, expected to host UT’s Horizon supercomputer), Switch’s two Dell-adjacent buildings, Skybox Old Settlers (the county’s only campus proceeding without municipal incentives), Skybox and Colovore in Hutto, Blueprint in Georgetown and Taylor, KDC’s six-building Project Comal beside Samsung, and Iron Mountain’s proposed seven buildings on about 500 acres that replaced a 1,900-home subdivision.

The newest entrant is Project Mustang: a joint venture of Big Watt Digital and PowerHouse Data Centers on a 665-acre site just east of Taylor’s city limits, with a 477 MW gas-fired generator and at least two data centers. Taylor’s position is instructive. The city says it is offering no incentives and will not to future data centers — but that if it does not annex the site, the developer can build in the unincorporated county with essentially no regulation. So Taylor is negotiating a voluntary annexation in exchange for the developer agreeing to exceed county and state standards on water, noise, air, light, setbacks, and drainage, plus community grants. Planning and zoning heard it August 18; council is scheduled for September 10 and 24. Because Mustang self-generates, the city says it does not need the same ERCOT approvals now frozen by the state audit.

Opposition is organized but has not yet stopped a project. Round Rock approved Skybox Old Settlers despite a 3,500-signature petition. Taylor verified a 1,400-signature moratorium petition and then declined to place it on the ballot, citing state law; residents have asked the Third Court of Appeals to compel a vote.

Hays County and San Marcos: the closed door

South of Austin the posture is the opposite. On June 23, 2026 the Hays County Commissioners Court adopted a resolution creating a 180-day emergency water protection review period during which tax abatements, development agreements, variances, and other discretionary approvals for high-water-use industrial projects are deferred, and standing up a High Water Demand Development Review Board. Commissioners stated on the record that the court will not incentivize data centers, with the county judge saying that stance is firm through at least December 31. A week earlier, on June 16, San Marcos amended its land use matrix to prohibit data centers in every zoning district, 4–3. Hays also petitioned the governor for a special session to expand county authority over high-water-use projects.

The practical read: a Hays County parcel is not a near-term data center site regardless of its power position. Buyers screening Central Texas are routing around it.

The state overlay: Abbott’s audit and Batch Zero

Everything above now runs through Austin. The PUCT approved ERCOT’s Batch Zero large-load interconnection framework on June 18, 2026 — a system-wide study of qualifying loads of 75 MW or more, replacing one-at-a-time approvals. On August 3, Gov. Abbott directed the PUCT and ERCOT to conduct a “comprehensive verification and audit” of every data center in the queue before any additional projects are approved to connect, citing some developers’ failure to answer the PUC’s water-and-power survey. The queue stood at roughly 474 GW, about 90% data centers — more than five times ERCOT’s record peak.

ERCOT told the PUCT on August 14 that the audit covers about 250–300 projects representing some 200 GW; on August 20 it said RFIs would go out through early September with a comprehensive report targeted for a December 10 filing, and that the Batch Zero study will no longer finish by its original April 2027 deadline. Separately, 17 large loads (~6.6 GW) that had cleared every ERCOT gate except energization are also being held for verification. BloombergNEF estimated the pause puts about 49.8 GW — roughly 20% of the U.S. pipeline — at risk of delay, and that data center revenue losses could reach $8 billion by Q1 2027 if it persists.

Two things follow for Central Texas. First, behind-the-meter projects gained relative ground: Project Mustang and the Pacifico concept were both designed to self-generate, and Taylor says Mustang does not need the frozen approvals. Second, the audit is pushing the industry toward the governor’s stated terms — pay for your own transmission, disclose water and tax breaks, don’t pass costs to residential ratepayers — and at least 43 companies have publicly endorsed that approach. Expect abatement asks to shrink and self-supplied power to feature in more site plans.

What it means if you own land in the corridor

• Location now sorts you before power does. East Williamson (Hutto–Taylor–Samsung) and Cedar Creek are where buyers are actively closing. Hays County and San Marcos are off the board for now. Travis County proper has seen little of this activity because the land and power math work better one county out.
• Gas access is a second currency. The two newest large proposals (Mustang, Pacifico) both pair a gas plant with the campus. A tract near a natural-gas transmission line can carry a data center story even where grid interconnection is years out — see our powered land analysis.
• Residential-entitled land is converting. Amazon’s Creekside tract, EdgeConneX’s 750-LUE subdivision site, and Iron Mountain’s 1,900-home Taylor Meadows site were all planned for housing. If you hold entitled residential acreage in the corridor, a data center exit is a real comp set.
• Abatements are getting harder; annexation is getting more common. Taylor’s no-incentive-but-annex model and Bastrop’s tightened guidelines both point the same way. Price your land on the buyer’s underwriting without a 100% abatement assumed.
• The audit is a timeline risk, not a demand risk. Grid-dependent projects will slip; the buyers have not left. Structure options and diligence periods accordingly — the selling-to-a-developer playbook covers the mechanics.

How SCORE helps

Steven Owen — an engineer with an NYU Stern finance MBA — tracks the corridor parcel by parcel: transmission and substation position, gas line proximity, jurisdiction and ETJ status, water district, and which named developers are buying which profile. If your land sits in eastern Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell, or eastern Travis County, SCORE will tell you whether it screens as a data center site, what the realistic buyer set is, and how to package it for the developer network. Start with the site-selection checklist and our Texas focus.

Figures are directional and dated as of September 9, 2026. Sources: Community Impact (Mar. 31, June 23, July 16, July 24, 2026 — EdgeConneX, Hays County resolution, Pacifico JETI application, Bastrop town hall); Austin Free Press (June 4 and Aug. 7, 2026 — Williamson County survey, Project Mustang); Elgin Courier (Aug. 25, 2026 — abatement withdrawal); Data Center Dynamics (May 8, 2026 — Amazon purchase); Texas Tribune (Aug. 14, 2026 — PUCT audit testimony); Utility Dive (Aug. 6 and Aug. 21, 2026 — BNEF analysis, ERCOT Dec. 10 target); ERCOT/PUCT Batch Zero approval June 18, 2026; Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation project filings. Project statuses change quickly; confirm current status with the jurisdiction and developer. This is general information, not investment, engineering, or legal advice. Related: powered land & ERCOT · site selection criteria · water, cooling & permitting · selling land to a data center developer.