CITY COUNCIL
A 135,000-square-foot data center could be breaking ground on Taylor’s east side next summer, drawn here thanks to an emerging tech hub anchored by Samsung Austin Semiconductor, officials said.
City Council gave the green light to the $225 million development with BPP Projects Thursday, Aug. 8, voting unanimously to approve tax rebate agreements with the company.
“It’s a great project for the community because it provides a big tax value that doesn’t put a strain on water or sewer, and there’s no need to build new schools. It’s not about the employment number but about the capital investment,” said Ben White, president and CEO of the Taylor Economic Development Corp.
Driven in part by the construction of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s multibillion-dollar semiconductor fabrication plant on Taylor’s southwest fringes, the data center joins a slew of other high-tech developments already in progress in Hutto, Pflugerville, Round Rock and Austin.
Data centers are sought-after additions to many cities’ tax bases because the large buildings with expensive, high-tech equipment require only a small number of personnel and light truck traffic, which translates to minimal infrastructure development.
The location in Taylor is expected to create a minimum of five jobs.
“If internet cables such as fiber optic are the backbone of the internet, data centers are the brains. They are where data is stored and accessed for use across the web,” said Daniel Seguin, a Taylor spokesman. “Having a data center in Taylor not only provides opportunities for better connectivity, but they also are a prerequisite for many hightech industries (that) need local access to a data center.”
The BPP Projects data center, previously codenamed “Project Sam,” will be on 52 acres currently owned by the EDC. The property is off Martin Luther King Boulevard at Carlos G. Parker Boulevard and the U.S. 79 loop, close to a 212-acre industrial complex.
Construction will be done in three phases and could start next July, officials said.
BPP Projects is registered as a Texas Foreign Limited-Liability Company, filed in November 2023.
White said the EDC began working with BPP Projects in December.
“What we did was help provide a site for the project so they could build what they need. Then we worked to make sure there was a win-win set of agreements in place for all parties,” White said.
Those agreements include a 10-year, 50-percent tax rebate for each phase of construction, including the tangible property inside the data center, and a rebate of 50 percent of the local use-tax collected on the materials used for construction.
These types of financial arrangements are known as “380 Agreements,” referring to Chapter 380 of Texas’ Local Government Code that allows cities to use funds for economic development.
White said 380 Agreements are standard for data centers because they work with such large investments. The EDC expects the data center will generate over $1 billion of capital expenditure in real and personal property over the next 10 years.
“This could be an additional $21 million coming to the (Taylor Independent) school district over the next 10 years. And even after the rebates, net benefits to the city are just under $26 million,” he said.
According to a prepared release from the city and the EDC, BPP will work with a local employment recruitment agency, hold one or more job fairs, partner with the Texas Workforce Commission seeking minority and local job applicants and join the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce.
“The BPP Data Center Project is a tremendous step in the TEDC’s goal to diversify the local economy. Projects like these grow our local tax base and are a huge win for the city, county and school district, ” EDC Chairwoman Betty Day said in a prepared release.
Added Mayor Dwayne Arriola, “We are proud to partner with BPP Projects to advance our high-tech industries in the city of Taylor. “Locating a data center within the city will further diversify our tax base and promote the location of businesses to Taylor who rely on data center access.”
According to a statement from the BPP Projects senior management team, “We are honored and grateful to be partnering with the TEDC and the city of Taylor and to have been awarded incentives to build our Data Center in Taylor, Texas. We are especially thankful for their support and look forward to supporting the city’s rapid and exceptional growth story.”
A news release from the company noted BPP “is an independent developer of data centers in the US that are flexibly designed to cater to high-performancecompute workloads, including (artificial intelligence) workloads.”
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If internet cables such as fiber optic are the backbone of the internet, data centers are the brains. They are where data is stored and accessed for use across the web. Having a data center in Taylor not only provides opportunities for better connectivity, but they also are a prerequisite for many high-tech industries (that) need local access to a data center.”
-Daniel Seguin, a Taylor spokesman
