Facility designed to be ‘human-centric’
HUTTO — A new data center slated for the city’s growing west side will combine brains and beauty, blending cutting-edge technology with an appealing design, officials said.
Project Raptor received approval for a special-use permit to begin development at 2599 Innovation Blvd. in the Ironwood Subdivision, with frontage on U.S. 79.
“This is a data center that attracts high-tech clients,” said Amanda Brown of HD Brown Consulting LLC. “This is owned and operated by one owner, which maintains a high quality of service throughout the entire building and also a quality of service to the land itself, the landscaping and management of the property.”
The owner is listed as Paul Smith, through Velocis Hutto Innovation JV LLP, a Dallas-based company.
The building will be designed with glazing, canopies, sidewalks and abundant trees and berms. Security fencing will only be restricted to the back and equipment yard, so the building presents an “inviting front-facing customer façade,” officials said.
“A unique component to this particular type of data center is it is more humancentric than many data centers you see that are more walled off,” Brown said.
The development represents a $500 million investment inside Hutto’s city limits, inclusive of the equipment, so the city will receive tax revenue.
Data centers generally are considered desirable businesses for cities because they have a large taxable property and equipment investments but few employees, which means the city receives tax revenue but has fewer infrastructure costs to support the business.
With an expected employee count of fewer than 30 people, the city will not need to consider impact on transportation or wastewater utilities, officials said. And while the center will use water for cooling the servers, Brown said the technology minimizes water usage.
“This particular facility is very innovative in terms of energy conservation,” she said. “The water system that cools this facility is on a closed loop, so that water is recycled making it more efficient.”
Brown also described the site’s backup generators as Tier-4 equipment, which is a higher quality, more efficient system.
At a November Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, board members questioned the potential for sound pollution, with one member mentioning that 100 decibels of noise was not uncommon for data centers.
Mandy Squibb with SLS Consultants agreed with commissioners that data centers can be noisy both inside and outside. In addition to the generators, which only run for testing and when the electricity fails, the cooling system and servers contribute to a high volume.
“We will be pursuing extensive acoustic studies as we move through this process to ensure that we’re mitigating for noise to the greatest extent possible,” Squibb said. “Being due to its location not near any single-family homes, we expect it to not affect anybody’s quality of life.”
Squibb said they will test the noise levels inside and out during construction and development and work to control the noise level for the community as well as the workers exposed to it daily.
The plant is expected to require around 40 kilowatts of power, which Brown said Oncor has agreed to provide. The facility will not have an onsite substation, drawing instead from a nearby distribution point. She assured concerned council members the power lines would line easements on 79 or Ed Schmidt Boulevard, not through residential areas.
“That’s why we push for the SUP, to make sure we’re not stringing high power lines around people’s neighborhoods and homes,” said Mayor Mike Snyder. Data centers have required a special-use permit since February, a relatively new ordinance.
“I think this is a great place to have a low-employee-count, high-value item that will be built, will look good and will provide tax revenue but won’t have the impacts a lot of the industrial uses tend to have, so I think it’s actually really good,” Snyder said.
Project Raptor is expected to begin construction in January 2026.
