Design-Build Delivery for Texas Data Centers

One contract, one schedule and one party answerable for both the drawings and the building is the reason owners choose design-build for a data center. The design of a mission-critical facility is tightly coupled to equipment that must be ordered early, and the people who know what a switchgear lineup costs and when it ships should be in the room when the electrical room is drawn. Design-build seats them there from the first sketch.

Data Center Builders of Texas leads design-build projects with the builder's side of the table. We bring in engineers of record under our contract or alongside it, depending on how the owner wants risk divided, and the team works from a shared budget that updates at each design milestone. Decisions on cooling topology, redundancy, building envelope and phasing are made with the cost and the lead time next to them.

Design-build is not the only method, and it is not right for every owner. Some operators have a standard design they want to repeat across sites, others hold a design team they trust and prefer a lump-sum bid, and some public owners are constrained by procurement law. We describe the trade-offs honestly and work in whichever structure the owner chooses.

Grid timing in Texas pushes owners to compress schedules. Senate Bill 6 requires large loads of 75 megawatts and above to complete interconnection steps, show site control and pay study fees, and those steps run in parallel with design. A single team can move design and procurement forward while the utility study continues, so equipment is on order when power is confirmed.

Large public works in the state show design-build in use at scale. In Port Arthur, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $403.9 million design-build contract in April 2025 for floodwall replacements and levee raises under the Sabine Pass to Galveston Bay program, with about three and a half years of construction expected. A data center is a different kind of project, but the idea is the same: where design and construction are intertwined, one entity should carry both. The site conditions around Port Arthur are a reminder that flood protection and building design are often the same conversation on the Gulf Coast.

We start with a program: capacity, resilience, cooling, expansion and constraints, written down and agreed. From it we develop a basis of design and a first budget, then hold a design charrette with the owner, engineers and our estimators. The charrette is where options are priced against each other on the spot, such as air-cooled versus water-cooled plant, or a two-story hall versus a single-story one.

Next we establish a guaranteed price or a target price with a shared-savings structure, depending on the contract. Each design package is released only when its price is reconciled with the budget, and anything that grows is raised the same week. Owners see a running log of changes and decisions, with cost and schedule effect noted, instead of a surprise at the next milestone.

A design-build scope can stretch from site selection support through commissioning. Common pieces are civil and site development, shell and core, power and cooling yards, mechanical and electrical systems, fit-out of the first halls, fiber entrances and security. The owner may keep some elements out, such as owner-furnished servers or specific vendor equipment, and we coordinate with them.

We also handle the permit path. The design team prepares drawings for the city, and we manage reviews and respond to comments. State law makes the International Building Code the municipal baseline and lets cities adopt amendments by ordinance, so we confirm which edition applies to each jurisdiction before the code analysis starts. Our permitting and utility interconnection work runs alongside.

Design-build tends to save time by overlapping design with procurement and early site work. It can save money by catching conflicts before they are built and by choosing details with a builder's knowledge of cost. It does not save money if the program is vague or keeps changing, because a moving target forces redesign under a fixed price.

The owner's own decisions drive more cost than the contract type: resilience level, cooling choice, speed and size of phase one. We show these as options with prices so they can be made deliberately. Our preconstruction and estimating work is where those choices are first priced.

A design-build agreement draws on nearly every service we offer. Long-lead equipment procurement often starts before design is complete, integrated systems commissioning is planned from the first schedule and fast-track scheduling is the method that makes overlapping design and construction safe.

For owners expanding an existing site, the structure is also useful, because a team that designs and builds can work around live operations without handing off between firms. We keep the same people on the project from concept through turnover wherever possible.

Share your capacity target, resilience level and timeline, and we will propose a contract structure with a budget and schedule. Hyperscale cloud providers and enterprise owners alike can use the same front end and choose a delivery method after seeing the numbers.

Who holds the design liability?

It depends on the contract. In some structures the design-builder holds the engineers under contract and carries the design risk; in others the owner holds the engineers and we build to their design with early input. We explain each structure and recommend one based on the owner's risk tolerance and experience.

Can we keep our own engineer?

Yes. Many owners have an engineer they trust or a standard design they want to reuse. We can work as a design-assist builder, giving cost and constructability input while the owner's engineer holds the design. The key is a shared budget and early access to the engineer.

How is price set?

Commonly as a guaranteed maximum price or a target price with shared savings, once the design reaches a level of completeness that makes it reliable. Before that, we provide budget estimates with ranges. We never present a number we cannot support.

Does design-build work for public owners?

Only where state or local procurement law allows it, and the rules differ. The Texas Comptroller's Statewide Procurement Division handles state purchasing through the Electronic State Business Daily and statewide contracts, and local entities have their own methods. We can advise on what is allowed and prepare proposals in the required form.

When does design-build make the least sense?

When the owner has a fully complete design, wants a lump sum bid for a known scope and has no schedule pressure. In that case, a traditional bid may produce a clear price. We can bid that too, and we will tell you if we think design-build would help.