Data Center Construction in Plano, Texas

Corporate headquarters campuses in Plano keep their most sensitive computing close, and the buildings that house it have to be built to the standard of the campus around them. We deliver those facilities: enterprise data halls, network rooms and the generator, battery and chilled-water systems behind them, all coordinated with the headquarters owner's real estate and IT teams. The design question is rarely raw capacity. It is continuity, security and an architecture that matches the campus.

Plano's commercial geography is distinctive. The Dallas North Tollway marks the western edge of central Plano, the Sam Rayburn Tollway the north, U.S. 75 the east and the President George Bush Turnpike the south. The city has no interstate highway of its own, so tollways and U.S. 75 carry the traffic, including construction traffic. We plan equipment moves and concrete deliveries with that grid in mind.

Legacy West, a $2 billion mixed-use district at 5905 Legacy Drive that opened to the public in June 2017, shows what corporate owners expect of their neighborhood. An automaker's North American headquarters on 100 acres, a major bank and an insurer sit among its tenants. The work we do for buyers like these is quiet by design: it should never be noticed by the people who rely on it.

Plano lists an automotive manufacturer's North American headquarters with 4,938 employees and a financial services company with 5,649 in the city's 2025 report. A snack-food maker, a retailer and a rental company are also headquartered here. Employers of that kind run payment systems, customer data platforms, supply chain applications and engineering environments, and they usually split them between owned and hosted capacity.

That split makes the owned facility smaller and more specialized than a wholesale hall. It is typically a primary or secondary site with tight security, fast recovery and close ties to a headquarters network. Our enterprise data center page and our enterprise and financial institutions page describe the design brief in more detail.

For a headquarters owner, we begin with a short list: the critical load, the redundancy level, the cooling method and the date the first rack must be live. From there we fix the electrical topology, the generator and battery count, and the mechanical plant, then draw the building around them. The result is a shell with the right clear heights, floor loading, riser space and equipment access.

When the owner wants to extend an existing facility, we check the electrical and mechanical systems for spare capacity before sizing new equipment. Our design-build delivery option gives the owner a single point of accountability for those choices, and our integrated systems commissioning step proves the result under load.

Plano reviews plans under its own adopted codes, and we confirm the current editions and amendments with the city before design is locked. Statewide law sets an International Building Code floor for municipalities, and cities adopt newer editions locally, so we never assume Plano's amendments match those of its neighbors. Energy-code documentation, fire-code review of fuel storage and electrical clearances are checked against the list the city gives us.

Suburban review teams care about screening, noise and appearance as much as life safety. Generators are tested at stated hours and decibel levels, and we design masonry or metal screens, landscaping and tank enclosures to satisfy those expectations. Our permitting and utility interconnection work keeps these threads together so that one submission does not contradict another.

With tollways on four sides of central Plano and no interstate, an oversized transformer or generator needs a route plan that accounts for tolling, bridge limits and turns at signalized intersections. A single-point interchange at U.S. 75 and Parker Road, opened in December 2010, is one example of the interchange geometry we review for trailer clearances. We submit the route to the city and the haul company before the equipment ships.

Plano is also a DART city, with Red Line stations at Downtown Plano and Parker Road and Silver Line stops at Shiloh Road and 12th Street. We keep laydown, parking and crane staging away from rail rights-of-way and station access, and we limit lane closures near stations to approved windows.

On headquarters projects, the largest cost swings come from redundancy and from schedule compression rather than from square footage. Moving from a single-path to a concurrently maintainable design adds switchgear, distribution and cooling paths, and each path has its own foundations, conduits and commissioning steps. We price the redundancy options as alternates so that leadership can see what each extra layer of resilience costs in dollars and in weeks.

Compression is the other driver. A hall needed in a hurry means overtime, expedited freight and parallel trades working in the same room. Our long-lead equipment procurement approach reserves production slots early, which often costs less than paying for acceleration at the end. We also recommend an owner-held contingency sized to the unknowns in existing conditions, kept separate from the contract sum.

Buyers who have outgrown a single campus often examine Frisco and Allen for additional capacity, since both sit along the same tollway corridors with their own utility and review conditions. We can estimate a headquarters site and a second site on identical assumptions so that your team sees the real difference.

Tell us the recovery objective, the critical load and the campus constraints. We will respond with a layout concept, a code review list and a first-pass schedule, and we will say plainly which decisions on your side set the critical path, whether that is a utility letter, an equipment order or a design approval.

Can you build a data hall that blends into a corporate campus?

Yes. We coordinate the exterior materials, screening, landscaping and signage with the owner and city so that the building reads as part of the campus. The mechanical and electrical yards are screened but remain accessible for service. Design choices are reviewed against noise and plan-review requirements from the start.

Which code edition applies in Plano?

State law sets an International Building Code floor, and the city may adopt newer editions with local amendments by ordinance. We confirm the current list with Plano before design is locked and record it in the project binder. If the list changes during design, we flag the effect on cost and schedule.

How do you handle construction traffic with no interstate?

We plan truck routes along the tollways and U.S. 75, schedule deliveries outside peak hours and stage oversized loads for off-peak windows. Route surveys check bridge clearances and signal geometry. Where tolls apply, they are carried as a separate line in the estimate.

Do you work inside occupied headquarters buildings?

Yes. Extending chilled water, adding battery rooms or installing a new service entrance can be done under a phased plan with dust barriers, vibration limits and fire watch. We coordinate outage windows with your facility team and test temporary systems before cutover.

What is the first thing you need from an enterprise owner?

Four items: the critical load in kilowatts, the redundancy level, the cooling approach and the target live date. With those four, we can size equipment, estimate the schedule and identify long-lead items. Everything else follows from those decisions.