Data Center Construction in Austin, Texas

When the city issues a boil-water advisory, a data hall that depends on municipal water for its cooling loop has a problem to solve, and in Austin we design that problem out of the building before construction starts. We build data hall fit-outs, central cooling plants, generator yards and the supporting site work for operators who need capacity close to a technology-heavy metro and who cannot assume that every utility will behave on the worst day. Our design starts with power and cooling and then works back to the building and the site.

The advisory is not a hypothetical. After heavy rain following Hurricane Sergio in October 2018, four floodgates at Mansfield Dam were opened and the city issued a boil-water advisory that ran from October 22 to 29. A week is a long time for any cooling system that draws from the public supply. We discuss on-site storage, makeup water sources, closed-loop designs and reduced-water chiller plants with every Austin owner, and we cost each of them so the decision is made on numbers.

The city is also where the grid operator's market meets one of the densest concentrations of compute demand in the state. Large loads in ERCOT now face interconnection standards set under Senate Bill 6, which uses a threshold of 75 megawatts. If your load is near that line, the study, financial and curtailment obligations that come with it should be known before a parcel is purchased.

Senate Bill 6 directs the Public Utility Commission to adopt standards for large customers connecting to the ERCOT system, and the legislature's own analysis lists site control, a flat study fee of at least $100,000 for initial transmission screening, financial commitment requirements and, for transmission-voltage loads interconnected after December 31, 2025, equipment that allows curtailment during firm load shed. Those items fall on the owner, but they dictate how we build, because a curtailment-capable site needs controls, switchgear and on-site generation that cooperate.

We coordinate with the owner's electrical engineer and the utility early, in the manner described in our work on permitting and utility interconnection. The city's own plan review is the second gate, and we keep a running list of what each reviewer asks so the next submittal does not repeat the same comment.

Austin sits at the foot of the Balcones Escarpment, and the Balcones Fault runs through the city. The east side is mostly flat and the west is hilly, which gives two different construction problems. East of the interstate we deal with blackland clay and large level parcels that suit big footprints; west of it we deal with rock, slopes and tighter drainage. Towns such as Hutto and Taylor sit over that prairie, and the clay behaves the same way across the county line.

Central Austin lies between I-35 on the east and the MoPac Expressway on the west, and the city has been described as the largest in the country served by only one Interstate Highway. Trucks have few alternatives to I-35, SH 71, US 183 or the SH 130 bypass. We schedule oversize deliveries for night and weekend windows and build a rehearsal of the route into the plan for any chiller and cooling plant pads that must be lifted into place by crane.

A cooling plant can be designed to use less water, but it then draws more electricity, and electricity is the scarcer resource in an interconnection queue. We lay out the tradeoff for each project: an evaporative system saves power and consumes water; a dry system does the reverse; a hybrid trims both at the cost of space and first cost. Our work on cooling water supply and reuse lines includes the storage tanks, reclaimed-water connections and treatment skids that make the chosen option reliable.

The same thinking applies to fuel. Generator yards need storage for the run time the owner demands, secondary containment and filling access that a tanker can reach without blocking a public road. We draw those details on the first site plan rather than as an afterthought.

The state government, the flagship university, a major grocer and a large health system lead the city's employer list, and a car and battery manufacturer operates a 2,100-acre, 10,000,000-square-foot factory campus in unincorporated Travis County near State Highway 130. Large industrial neighbors matter to a data center because they compete for the same substations, labor and trucking. In practice the question is not whether a parcel sits near a large industrial neighbor but whether the local utility can serve both.

Operators serving enterprise and financial customers frequently choose a colocation presence in the metro rather than owning a building, which is why the smaller colocation facility remains an important building type here. North of the city, Round Rock and Georgetown offer larger parcels along the same corridors for owners who find the central city too constrained.

Austin projects run on three parallel paths: permit approvals, utility energization and equipment lead times. We build the master schedule backward from the date the first hall must carry load, then test each path against it. Where one path is the critical one we say so in plain terms and propose ways to shorten it, such as ordering gear before final drawings or building a prefabricated electrical room offsite.

When the owner wants speed, we use the methods in our fast-track scheduling service, with early site packages that let grading and underground work begin while the building design is still being finished.

Share the load, the water source you expect to use and the utility contact, and we will map the cooling, interconnection and delivery risks on that parcel.

Should a cooling system plan for a multi-day city water outage?

It should at least price the option. The 2018 advisory lasted a week, and the city is not unique in that exposure. We compare on-site storage, closed-loop and hybrid designs, explain how much space and electricity each requires and let the owner decide how much autonomy to buy.

What does the 75 megawatt threshold mean for my project?

It is the demand level at which the state's large load interconnection standards apply, unless regulators set it lower. If your project may cross it, ask early about site control, study fees, financial commitments and curtailment equipment. We design the electrical yard to accommodate those requirements from the start.

Which side of Austin is easier to build a large data hall on?

The flat east side generally has larger parcels and fewer slope problems, though it carries expansive clay. The hilly west side has rock and tighter drainage. Neither is simply better; the choice depends on the utility available, the parcel size and the owner's tolerance for foundation cost.

How do you move oversize equipment through a city with one interstate?

We plan routes in advance, pick night or weekend windows and verify clearances and permits. SH 130 can act as a bypass for loads heading to the east side. A route rehearsal costs very little against the price of a crane and crew waiting on a stuck truck.

Can you work on a data hall inside an existing building?

Yes. Fit-out in an occupied or partially occupied building requires dust control, protected paths and coordination with other tenants. We cover that approach in our work on retrofit and expansion, and we price the isolation measures explicitly.