There are 2 neighborhoods that are closer than Midtown. But Midtown is still paying out of the wazoo in extra taxes. If the city does this they might as well absorb the MMD.

Bob Yancy said:

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Hornbeck said:

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What's the name of this company?

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I'm not at liberty to disclose that as we may still be under an NDA. I've asked about its expiration repeatedly, but have yet to receive an answer. In either event, it would have to expire tomorrow when the agenda is posted. We have to talk about it then.

That gave me a small window between the last meeting (when we were explicitly told it was ready for public consumption) and when it gets posted tomorrow to notify you.

I waited until today to be safe. We've been talking about this since the holidays and I have issues with the constraints on transparency imposed on us with the voters, to whom my clear and unambiguous primary fiduciary duty actually rests- which I'll not forget.

Once posted, we have a city policy constraining council communication on posted agenda items (see my signature block disclaimer on this platform). Now, we violate that policy pretty routinely when we go on the radio and are asked about a posted agenda item, and I don't mean just me. But I do try to honor it, even though that policy, on advice of officeholder counsel, may violate the Open Meetings Act itself.

The bottom line is the voters aren't waiting with bated breath for an agenda to get posted so they can go see if a massive development is going to be built next to their home. You entrust us, who you voted into office, to serve as that ambassador and to keep you informed.

As for your question: virtually everything I posted before is publicly discoverable save for "potential data center at Midtown." Once that is known, all else is readily available, with effort- except their name. To know the company name, check the agenda in the morning.

Thanks!

Respectfully

Yancy '95

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I'm not at liberty to disclose that as we may still be under an NDA. I've asked about its expiration repeatedly, but have yet to receive an answer.

I can't imagine this. How is that allowed.
Sounds like more of the same B.S.
when I read that the hair on the back of my neck went up,
Why would anyone participate in this high stakes game and pretend to make intelligent decisions when you can't get factual answers to questions.
Once again I ask you Councilman Yancy please go slow and question the motives of those who will not answer your questions. Our city management has a poor reputation.
Thank you for your service and your communication here.
From what I have learned on this thread I would be a hard and absolute no on this deal as it has been presented.

TLDR for the most part...

Some stuff jumped out at me.

Lower taxes? I'll believe that when I see it on my bill. Government entities don't give back money.

No info until entered in the contract? Is Nancy Pelosi running things? Gotta sign it to see what's in it?

If the reservoir on the Navasota River had been built, the water supply issue wouldn't be quite the thorn it has become.

BBQ said:

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Since your counting, i m much more at peace with noise than nuclear waste.

But that is just me. Im weird that way.

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How about neither?

I doubt it's going to be 700 feet from your house though.

Okay, so I have some more information and after reading through the thread have a few thoughts.

I have seen zero math whatsoever showing we have the power for a data center, much less a Bitcoin mining operation. Unless the plan is to go nuclear, it doesn't make sense.

Here's what we know:
- We know that this company, per their website, goes in, develops the land to a certain degree, adds power, then sells and flips the land.
- We know that this company has been doing well at adding power to land, but doesn't have a history of building data centers.
- We know that we have absolutely NO idea who the end user is. Whether it be Google, Meta, OpenAI, etc., that to me is foolish even as a capitalist.

Here are some other thoughts I've had: for the sake of the argument, let's say it's data and not Bitcoin. I would assume many of you remember using floppy disks and the storage they held. Now, my phone holds the same storage as 177,778 floppy disks. I say that to say in 10-15 years, data storage will have changed substantially, making the use for a data center of that magnitude probably unusable. Which leaves a 200-1M sqft useless building. All for a couple of years of 45 jobs.

I know many of you don't agree with incentives, but I'd much rather incentivize restaurants and shops and retail down there and create hundreds of jobs that can grow and evolve over the next 10-15 years.

We as a city don't have much land left, and if we give this up because it is bright and shiny now, what is going to be said of the area when your kids are adults? This has to be looked at from a long-term use, just as importantly as it has to be looked at for a resource perspective.

Again, I am no expert on this topic, but I love technology and have been watching this stuff unfold on top of studying it. It makes me very nervous.

Quote:

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Insane is a bit harsh, don't you think? If the city were a private sector business, we'd be insane NOT to do this. The fiscal upside is massive, and folks don't like paying property taxes. If we do this I'll pound the table for a tax rate offset. Heck I wouldn't have to, the valuation increase alone would require it by law. If this were constructed already, it would've lowered everyone's taxes down to 45 cents, or thereabouts.

My first fiduciary duty is to the taxpayer.

Considering all options, Respectfully

Yancy '95

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Just getting to this thread. Sorry I missed the window when you can still respond to our posts.

These are observations based on earlier responses and previous issues with CoCS leadership. There are no personal attacks on the councilman or city leadership. There are some criticisms of past decisions and performance. Those are not personal.

Your duty is not to the taxpayer. You have demonstrated that a number of times.

You visit this forum and engage with the posters here, which is more than the other council members or mayor or city manager do, and you are careful to say the right thing so it appears you above board, but you consistently sidestep when your position is shown to be weak.

Look how you started this thread with a mention of naysayers on the Macy's and Chimney Hill issues but that this would more than make up for it.

That's the problem right there. You think getting into this terrible agreement will wipe the slate clean on past terrible real estate deals. It won't. Because the city still owns one of those terrible deals, spent money on a lawsuit trying to defend their arrogance referring maintenance fees, and screwed over a local businessman with a solution and then tried to hide it, including not answering questions from a sitting councilman. And that property isn't generating tax revenue.

So no, this won't make up for it.

Why?

Because the city has a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem.

You said earlier that this deal could result in lowered taxes for CS residents. It won't. Because the people you work for at city hall (it's clear you work for them and not the other way around considering they don't answer your questions when asked) will find some new projects to spend that tax revenue on. Lowering taxes is not a consideration for them or any local government entity.

You have no concrete numbers on water and power usage. Yet you are presenting this as though we would be crazy not to consider the project.

Having grown up in a chemical town, I can easily see the city and county both giving some kind of abatement to whatever company would operate the data center. Maybe not a tax abatement, so it looks good on paper. I would not be surprised to see a utility abatement. They pay a lower rate for water and electricity than the residents and existing businesses pay. That would not be a surprise. I saw it many times where I grew up. This would be a similar type of employer that would want concessions.

You used the word "entrust" earlier, that the voters have entrusted the elected officials to vote on their behalf, so no need for those pesky polls to be opened so people can vote on a project of this magnitude.

Please don't use that word in the future. The fact that posters are asking if we can vote on this should tell you we don't trust leadership at the city to make the decision for us.

The largest employer in the town where I grew up employed 5000 employees and 5000 contractors. The other plants in the area were smaller but also employed thousands of employees and contractors combined.

Tax abatements were common and when they were due to expire, the companies always threatened to pull out of town and go overseas if the abatement wasn't renewed.

Abatements got renewed every time the threats were made.

These plants were huge so they had their own power generation facilities. One company had eight power generation plants across its three plant sites. They sold off what power they didn't consume, back to the grid.

Not so with water. They used a lot of water. They still do.

Now remember, they employed 10,000 plus people.

CoCS would bring in someone with large water and electricity demands for 45 permanent positions and (allegedly) some tax money and some cash upfront for the land sale?

Yes, insane was the correct word to use, as an earlier poster suggested.

CoCS is out if its league here. Bryan has industry. The county has some industry. There are cooling towers at what, two hospitals in town? Maybe a big church or two?

There isn't anything in the city close to the scope of water usage needed to cool something like this data center.

And LOL at the poster that said our higher humidity will help with the water usage for the cooling systems. Sorry, dude, but humidity in the air doesn't magically refill cooling tower basins and put water back into chilled water loops.

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity." In the case of evaporation from cooling towers, it's the heat.

We need less retail and restaurants, and more long term careers and other related things to bring higher paying jobs. I'm not disagreeing with your overall sentiment, a data center would be a catastrophe that no city government needs to be a part of period. To any extent.

POI should be remote and left solely to market participants to accommodate how they see fit. It is disgusting such small organizations attempt to plant themselves in matters they don't understand, spending money they have no business spending, to control something they are inadequately prepared to manage.

Macy's needs to be investigated and prosecutions need to he had for fraud or mismanagement of tax payer dollars before anything like this is trotted out like anyone gives a damn.

BOTTOM LINE: SEEMS LIKE THE CONSENSUS IS THAT NO ONE WANTS THIS TO HAPPEN!!!

I think the poster was saying that evaporative cooling would not be as effective with our humidity.

So, they would need chillers to cool down the water, is my guess having more fans and using more electricity.

I asked about whether the new water wells being drilled took this project into account. I was told no. So, if it's not taking this into account, where does this water come from?

Personally, I'm glad Yancy engages with us. I am of the opinion that he's the only one up there trying to do the right thing sometimes. This further illustrates that point.

Bryan let their residents give input for a month on the new RELLIS datacenter. CoCS is publishing agenda items on Friday at 4:10, so that people could not see it and comment on it all day. Shady. Just like Rosemary, just like Macy's, just like the Northgate tower.

Yep.

They are Baylor during the Art Briles era scandals, when they would issue a press release on Friday night, hoping enough football action would happen on Saturday or Sunday to knock of the list of topics for talk radio and Sportscenter on Monday.

Doing some more research after learning who the Priority Power Management (PPM) is…

They seem to have a trail of lawsuits and conflicts with their customers…

https://theminermag.com/news/2024-07-18/celsius-bitcoin-mining-texas

"Despite this, Barber Lake claims that PPM refused to refund the payments, asserting that the funds became non-refundable as of March 31, 2022. Barber Lake contends that this refusal constitutes a breach of contract.
Barber Lake further accuses PPM of using the funds to enhance the value of the Barber Lake site, potentially for a third-party sale, thus unjustly enriching itself at the expense of Celsius Mining."

"In March 2023, a bankruptcy judge approved Core Scientific's transfer of over $20 million worth of electrical equipment to PPM, Core Scientific's exclusive energy negotiator. The dispute involved two facilitiesalso in West Texasthat were expected to provide 1 gigawatt of power capacity.
Core Scientific stopped payments to PPM in May 2022 after it became clear that the facilities would not receive the anticipated power load. PPM, claiming $30 million owed, received a secured claim for $20.8 million, deemed paid by the equipment transfer."

Forecaster Energy management filed a case against them in March 2025 - https://trellis.law/case/48201/202518358/forecaster-energy-management-llc-vs-priority-power-management-llc



Yeah, College Station, they seem like a great partner. /s


Who exactly is doing the due diligence over there? Ray Charles?

Hornbeck said:

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Priority Power's proposal is here https://filebin.net/dxbx0v8dztxdkp7r

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For those that haven't read the proposal, I highly recommend giving it a skim. I can't wrap my head around why they would even entertain this. My fear is that this is now a foregone conclusion based on how long they've been working this deal behind the scenes. Bettering the quality of life of its residents seems to be the last priority of City Management & the council members that report to them. When the FOIA emails eventually come out like the Macys deal, it'll be just another minor scandal swept under the ever-growing giant COCS rug.

doubledog said:

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GasAg90 said:

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Why do DCs need to be built in cities. Wouldn't this screw over the citizens and companies who have moved into Midtown? What is CS giving up to entice them? I'm a bit bewildered this is even being considered at this location.

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Let's ask this. Why do companies want to build a DC in this city? Are we being taken to the cleaners?

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For sure they are getting something. Something that smells like tax dollars.

My first reaction was that midtown is a really dumb place to put a datacenter given what I thought was the vision for that area. However, on further reflection I'm more in the camp of the city shouldn't be in business of owning property for the purpose of deciding what it is used for - let the free market decide. In the end, the property was for sale, a buyer has offered $30M, the city should sell them the land with appropriate zoning and ordinances in place.

Some of the concerns expressed in this thread are valid, some are outdated, and some are more based on fear of the incompetence of the city.

For water specifically, very few evaporative cooling data centers are being built anymore - those days are over. I'm not at all surprised to see the statement in the proposal that water consumption isn't an issue, modern designs use air cooled chillers or closed loop dry coolers, neither of which consume water.

I don't know what kind of noise ordinance is on the books but a tight requirement with meaningful penalties would be the most important criteria for me, if I had a vote. For example, a $100/day fine would not in any way deter a 600 MW data center operator from letting those gen sets scream if they needed it. That being said, with the 700 foot plus natural buffer to residential and the layout with the gen sets on the sides or roof of those buildings, I wouldn't really expect it to be an issue.

Anyone (council members included) who want to see what this would look like / sound like in practice can make a short drive to Houston, Austin, Temple, San Antonio, Red Oak, Midlothian, etc to see both operational centers and ones under construction - take your pick: Texas Data Centers - 385 Facilities from 160 Operators

What's the ballpark benefit to a citizen? Are you talking $50/year or $1,000/year? Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if it were all offset by water and electricity increases.

If you have a hunch they are a flipper, why isn't the city reaching out directly to data center developers to see about a higher bid?

cstat07 said:

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What's the ballpark benefit to a citizen? Are you talking $50/year or $1,000/year? Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if it were all offset by water and electricity increases.

If you have a hunch they are a flipper, why isn't the city reaching out directly to data center developers to see about a higher bid?

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Apparently we are revisiting the guideline, or policy- whichever it was/is, about commenting on posted agenda items to allow it. Therefore I'll answer your question.

I like your idea. That strategy might have been employed before, but right now I think we have a duty to staff and the potential buyer of the property to hear them out next Thursday with an objective ear.

If, for whatever reason we do not approve this project on Thursday night, there's quite a few things I'd suggest we do going forward:

1) I'd like to get an independent consultant to advise us on the data center industry overall. Current trends. Who are the common end users of data centers. Where have they failed, and why? Where have they worked, and why? Beyond the decibel numbers, has the constant low hum led to problems next to neighborhoods, and how far away do they truly need to be in order to quell those complaints? And what about small or mid-size data centers? I've read articles that say that's an untapped market. Might we as a city develop a "powered data park" ourselves and energize the site, deriving much greater value from this land as it appears the proposed buyer is trying to do? We already own a best-in-class electric utility in CSU. How can we leverage that taxpayer asset to the benefit of this site, if at all?

2) the Midtown Business Park: IF we don't approve this, I have questions about the location of the industrial park itself. Is it properly placed? Given the neighborhoods, the Langford, the new Costco and the exciting new mixed use development coming in next to it, with a potential housing development as well- and the Lowe's, what exactly is the highest and best use of that considerable amount of land? Were it housing, a family could literally bike or walk to Costco or a future restaurant. We are in a housing crisis, not a lack of data centers crisis in College Station. Have circumstances and development in that area changed to a point where we need to rethink that location altogether as an industrial park?

3) What's our plan for the next business park if we sell this now? Will we not have one? If we do, where would it be? Down Fitch toward 30? That's a business corridor already. Might that be a good place for a business park? The payment from selling it now would be more than enough to acquire land there in a voluntary annexation acquisition.

I like to approach things from 50,000 feet. I don't like building new public works facilities with no plan for what to do with the current site. I don't like to enter into real estate contracts in order to "figure out" if something is feasible in water and power consumption later until extensive early due diligence is done which I know yields important insights, just as it already has for me on this project. I don't like to enter into a contract with anyone until I know their corporate history, when they were formed and by whom, when they were last bought and by whom, what is their legal history and has their business model changed recently, and why. I don't like entering into contracts with people I've never met or seen. Staff can see to the contractual X's and O's after I've looked them in the eye and heard their plan. If something goes south after we enter a deal and the taxpayer asks me questions about how we got into it, "I'm sorry I never met these people I've no clue" does not cut it. I also don't like entering into real estate contracts on a student tower with renderings not approximating anything close to what we think we might want. Conceptual drawings are crucial to any development project.

And most of all, I want citizen engagement early. If that's small, intimate meetings with nearby neighborhoods or merchants in the area, or open workshops or surveys or council led ambassadorial efforts with our constituents, or all of the above- I want the bosses to know early on where our head is at and with due respect to staff and my colleagues- I will never change on that. I just won't.

I made my initial post on this data center from that mindset. I was 24 hours early in doing so. I jumped the gun by a day because a) I was certain I had been told this was ready for public dissemination and b) we've had an informal policy of not discussing posted agenda items, which again, is apparently no longer in effect. For jumping the gun by a day, I apologize to my colleagues and to staff. For the citizens getting a heads up on what we are looking at beyond just an agenda post, I make no apology.

We'll hear this Thursday night. A lot of hard work has gone into it by the proposed buyer and seller and it deserves an objective hearing.

See yall Thursday.

Respectfully and transparently always,

Yancy '95

CaptTex said:

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We need less retail and restaurants, and more long term careers and other related things to bring higher paying jobs. I'm not disagreeing with your overall sentiment, a data center would be a catastrophe that no city government needs to be a part of period. To any extent.

POI should be remote and left solely to market participants to accommodate how they see fit. It is disgusting such small organizations attempt to plant themselves in matters they don't understand, spending money they have no business spending, to control something they are inadequately prepared to manage.

Macy's needs to be investigated and prosecutions need to he had for fraud or mismanagement of tax payer dollars before anything like this is trotted out like anyone gives a damn.

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The only part of the city with the data center is selling the land if the city owns it, any zoning issues, or possibly some property tax considerations based on employment numbers. The council needs to keep their activities in servicing their constituents and waving a flag on marketing the city to private interests and little more,

As far as the Macy's issue goes, the two or more city officials that did not disclose to their supervisors, the city council, that a third party, Lewis, was interested and going to make an offer, should have had their employment terminated before the next Friday after the council found out, it was an inept and spineless council at that time,

If the city council didn't do a dang thing to bring in new business, the city and county would grow at a manageable rate.

Someone needs to tell the owners of The Langford right now. The families of those who live there are going to have something to say.

Pretty rare an unsolicited bid ends up being the highest bid in my line of work. And we don't owe an unsolicited buyer anything unless we tell them we will do something.

Quote:

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If, for whatever reason we do not approve this project on Thursday night, there's quite a few things I'd suggest we do going forward….

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How about you don't approve on Thursday pending further investigation!

What is the hurry? Vote it in before the citizens can stop y'all from making another huge blunder?

Macy's was bad but does not consume mass quantities of water and electricity.

cstat07 said:

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Pretty rare an unsolicited bid ends up being the highest bid in my line of work. And we don't owe an unsolicited buyer anything unless we tell them we will do something.

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Exactly…if you're ready to sell, open it up to other potential buyers. Maybe you find someone with a plan that's more compatible with the community

dubi said:

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Quote:

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If, for whatever reason we do not approve this project on Thursday night, there's quite a few things I'd suggest we do going forward….

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How about you don't approve on Thursday pending further investigation!

What is the hurry? Vote it in before the citizens can stop y'all from making another huge blunder?

Macy's was bad but does not consume mass quantities of water and electricity.

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It's 100% this

I must be missing something. COCS doesn't generate a single W of electricity.

In what world can they agree to a partnership with an entity that will consume vast amounts of it. Unless you can lock that part up first this is commercial vapor ware.

If the burden will fall to BTU to supply it, has anyone asked them if they have the overhead? Or any other generator? Last I looked BTU hasn't said a word.

Forget the water and noise and all the other issues. If you don't have the power needed locked in, you aren't doing this.

From what I read earlier in the thread (Elephant Rider), BTU in partnership with Texas New Mexico Power is running a new transmission line from Bremond to RELLIS in order to support the new AI datacenter at RELLIS.

What's unconscionable to me is that Bryan gave their citizens ample time to give their opinions on their new datacenter project. At RELLIS. Not in the middle of town next to Sue Haswell park! To use an example.

We get an agenda item posted after 4 pm, on something this big, and council is voting on it Thursday. Why the rush? Why the push to fly this under the radar?

The county folks and the city folks in Bryan were sworn to secrecy, etc., but they gave their "bosses" the chance to let the opinions be known. Not so much here.

Most folks have no clue this is coming this week, whether they like it or not. Same thing CS did with the new Walmart and Weingarten. People showed up to be upset after the deal was done. When *that* council reversed that decision, the city lost a huge lawsuit because of it.


Just STOP. Quit being in a rush to shove this down our throats. Please. Let the citizens have some input.

As of right now, for me this is a very hard NO.

Here is my TLDR version:
We need infrastructure first - power plant before data center is how the equation should work (or simultaneously)

Texas are already being burned by data centers and most don't have a clue its happening. Even when the data centers have to throttle usage ; ERCOT pays them millions to do so (our tax $$$)

Without increased power generation first, or concurrently, our electrical bills will skyrocket (that's for everyone increasing the cost of everything grocery stores also need a lot of electricity to keep things cold)

Oh, an NDA Did any member of council purchase stock in the company or associated company to the one who approached the city?

Long version:

This is where government agencies mess up. The only part of the equation they see is tax is the tax revenue. Tax revenue is the fentanyl equivalent for politicians.

If College Station wants a data center, then build a power plant first. Imagine how marketable a city would be that already has an ample electrical supply/grid. Probably wouldn't even have to offer any tax credits or incentives. They might even receive multiple bids.

Some of the scary things relating to data center is that electrical consumption and a few other things are regulated by the state. Even if the city were to ever actually acknowledge a mistake, they couldn't even legislate their way out of it.

The New Braunfels area will be an interesting case study. A datacenter is currently under construction, and it will have its own natural gas power plant. Not everyone is happy about the new datacenter but its off the grid. Here a couple links describing what's going on.
NB Article #1

NB Article #2

The power grid in Texas is connected and we do not have enough power generation locally or throughout the state. Our population and industrial growth in the state has been very rapid in recent years. A data center just about anywhere in the state without increased power generation burns all Texans. ERCOT has already paid millions for these companies to throttle energy usage.

In just one month during the August 2023 heat wave, ERCOT paid a single company Riot Platforms (1 of the Rockdale Crypto companies) $31.7 million to throttle electrical usage. We have more datacenter online since then and more coming. At that time they made more money throttling electrical usage versus mining crypto. Us Texans paid them to do nothing.

ERCOT Pays Millions To Throttle

The new SB6 can force companies to throttle back in a 'Power Emergency" and be compensated for volunteering to throttle. This is way too muddy and subjective. This seems like an area ripe for corruption and manipulation. What is the criteria for an emergency and who decides there is an emergency and for what specific geography. Can cryptocurrencies voluntarily throttle, get compensated and use specific timing to also manipulate the value?

Most people do not realize we are an hour from (currently) North Americas Largest crypto mining facility - Riot Platforms. We taxpayers have paid them more to throttle than they could generate in profit by being operational. Also in Rockdale next door is Bitdeer another crypto facility.

The Riot Platforms facility in Rockdale uses 700MW of power just to cool the facility. In perspective, the Dansby power plant on Lake Bryan has a max peak generation capacity of 206MW. If the Dansby power plant were directly plugged into the Rockdale facility it wouldn't even be able to supply 30% of its power requirements.

Riot Platforms Rockdale Facility

For the future, Rick Perry is part of something interesting brining data centers / crypto and excess power generation into Amarillo. If this model works I can see datacenter being these giant facilities in the middle of nowhere all over the US. This venture is supposed to generate 11 gigawatts of power when complete. Just plug in a DeLorean directly and time travel. That's 55 Dansby (Lake Bryan) power plants.

(lets not go down the rick perry rabbit hole. this is not an endorsement just an example)
Rick Perry's Venture

For me, as of right now for the city of College Station this is a big-time NO! Personally, I do feel like there is something to what Rick Perrys group is doing; and to some extent New Braunfels. I think the New Braunfels facility is still too close to the actual town/population.

I can see places like Ft. Stockton or Van Horn (Bezos already owns property there) with small scale nuclear and/or natural gas power plants. Except for nuclear (and some natural gas), the data centers use more electricity per square foot of floor space than the power plant can even generate per square foot of generating floor space.

Besides the power and water issues. I really don't see any currently city owned College Station property as a viable option. We don't have any real rural land far from residential housing. We couldn't even handle the noise form Amazon Drones. Now imagine a facility that cannot be moved and not regulated by the city, rather the state.

The grid is in such a mess that we shouldn't be talking about data centers in Texas for a while unless they include power generation:
Brief on the current state of the grid

And it's the last thing on the agenda.

I, for one, appreciate many of the posters on this topic for their insight and knowledge of the subject. I tend to trust these posters above the COCS because they are taxpayers and residents like me. Their "dog in the hunt" is the fact they are long-term residents.

And the fact that the city officials (elected and unelected) have made such poor decisions in the past doesn't leave me with a whole lot of confidence in their ability to do what's best for the citizens. It is well past time to oust the voting block that currently run the city council.

My vote on this venture would be a hard "no".