Prologis, Skybox Cleared to Build 159-Acre Data Center In Hutto

Skybox Datacenters and Prologis are poised to deliver a massive campus to a small town north of Austin after local officials agreed to subsidize it.

Hutto City Council approved the joint venture’s $10 billion plans to construct a datacenter with up to six buildings totalling 3.9 million square feet at a “megasite” along U.S. Route 79, the Austin Business Journal reported.

The 159-acre project, dubbed PowerCampus Austin, is slated to become one of the largest economic developments in the region. There’s no construction timeline for the data center campus, but the city annexed and zoned the site last month.

The developers agreed to build at least 1.5 million square feet of data center space in exchange for tax abatements. The campus could also include warehouse and ancillary buildings.

The city expects to exempt 50 percent of the property’s taxable value, as long as the developers reach a capital investment minimum of $100 million.

The 10-year agreement will start Jan. 1 in the year following the project’s completion, the outlet said.

“The project will offer 600 megawatts through two private substations, making it one of the most scalable data center campuses in the United States,” Prologis’ JC Witt told the outlet.

The building will be LEED certified and have solar and EV charging infrastructure.

Other large-scale developments are in the works at Hutto’s megasite. New Mexico-based Titan Development is creating the Hutto Mega TechCenter, a 188-acre industrial project. Prologis also sold a 62-acre tract to Oncor Electric Delivery Company that was annexed and zoned last month, as well.

Elsewhere in the Austin metro, Skybox and Prologis teamed up on a $548 million data center in Pflugerville. The 20-acre development, dubbed “Skybox Austin 1,” spans 141,000 square feet and offers 300 megawatts.

—Quinn Donoghue