BY AMIRA VAN LEEUWEN
The bottom line
What the experts say
Levinski worked in Austin during a time when the city was o ering many tax abatement deals and said that very few of those agreements have “stood the test of time.” “The companies use those agreements to pitch as leverage to their investors and ultimately, no matter what we agreed to, the companies even- tually failed to perform knowing that the only penalty is to pay taxes like the rest of us,” Levinski said.
Steven Tays, one of Guadalupe County’s assistant attorneys, said the 10-year tax abatement requires the data center to operate continuously for 10 years after the abatement period ends; the county is entitled to recapture all ad valorem taxes abated under the agreement. Bobby Levinski, an attorney with Save Our Springs Alliance who is representing property owners adjacent to the center, said he does not believe the center will meet the tax abatement requirements based on his previous experience.
Construction for the CloudBurst AI data center’s rst building was scheduled to begin in April and is anticipated to wrap up in March 2027. The data center is estimated to be fully built out by December 2029, according to the tax abatement agreement.
CloudBurst estimated build-out timeline
Building number
2026
1
Zooming out
2027
2
heat islands, increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses and intensifying air pollution. There are also noise pollution impacts, Hanes said.
A January report from Bloom Energy projects that Texas will see a 142% increase in its share of the data industry by 2028, as previously reported by Community Impact . The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state power grid, estimated in an April 15 report that Texas will see over 367,000 megawatts of electric demand by 2032, with much of that load growth expected to come from data centers and industrial projects. ERCOT’s current demand record sits at 85,508 megawatts. The Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, or GEAA, a nonpro t organization that advocates for the pro- tection and preservation of the Edwards Aquifer, released a data center report with policy recom- mendations in April. Rachel Hanes, GEAA policy director and author of the report, said no two data centers are alike, so each one will have a di erent impact. However, data centers can create their own
3
4
Texas data centers
2028
5
1
1
6
There are about 457 data centers registered in Texas, with 70 registered in San Antonio.
17
7
1
4
12
181
8
1
2
2029
2
1
12
1
1
9
1
2
8
2
6
1
1 1 1 1 1
2
10
2
58
50
70
1
2
2030
3
*AS OF MAY 22 SOURCE: DATA CENTER MAP COMMUNITY IMPACT
SOURCE: CLOUDBURST TEXAS LLC COMMUNITY IMPACT
4
3
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