Temple Clears First Readings on Rowan's $4.2B Campus

Temple is pairing a megaproject with binding successor rules. Rowan Digital Infrastructure’s three-phase, six-building campus in the Synergy Southeast Industrial Park cleared first readings on rezoning, annexation, and tax-abatement zones at the Sept. 3 Temple City Council meeting on a $4.2B buildout.

Rowan committed about $32 million (45 percent of Temple’s $71.1M South Temple Water Infrastructure Capital Program), construction of a Synergy aquifer-storage-and-recovery well it won’t own, and closed-loop cooling at 32,000 gallons per day on average (peak 78,000). Council advanced first-read rules for future campuses: power-density caps, setbacks, noise limits, and water-use limits tied to cooling efficiency. The remaining vote on the amended abatement and phase infrastructure terms decides whether that opening holds.

California’s Central Valley is closing code before applications land. Tulare County adopted a 45-day moratorium on August 18 with extension options up to a year. Fresno City Council moved to amend code to ban “AI/cloud data centers” for 10 years. Patterson extended its moratorium through July 15, 2027. Modesto clarified data centers aren’t permitted under current code after general inquiries only.

Colorado added just 6.5 MW in the first half of 2024 while Northern Virginia added more than 1,000 MW; a sales-and-use tax exemption package failed in May, and panelists at Bisnow’s DICE: Rockies conference said near-term incentives look unlikely as speed-to-power stays the binding constraint. Australia’s National Cabinet moved August 26, 2026 toward nationally uniform mandatory standards on energy, water, land use, and skills, with legislation planned by early 2027, as about 84 percent of 9 GW of Q2 connection applications sat in the application stage with none yet at testing and commissioning. A Gallup survey from March found 70 percent of Americans oppose a data center nearby.

These are site-selection and engagement clocks, not abstract politics. Markets that clear power position, water verification, and local rules without multi-year freezes keep drawing capital.

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told a July Lubbock protest that developers are buying prime farmland at 10 times agricultural value, and farmers can’t refuse. Land purchases for future data centers hit $6 billion in the first half of 2026, up 79 percent year over year per Avison Young, and data centers now represent 27 percent of U.S. development sites this year.

Temple’s path differs from preemptive bans: roughly a dozen residents opposed, including farmer Chris Bosties on multi-generational land, while council advanced Rowan and first-read standards that bind the next applicant. Piedmont, Oklahoma’s planning commission recommended rejecting Houston-based Cloverleaf Infrastructure’s rezoning for a 1.5 GW “Project Open Sky” tied to the Matheson substation; council delayed a final vote and ordered a comparable-facility tour, per a hidden-camera report that also flags an alternate Kingfisher County site.

Bottom line: show up for local rule language and benefit-sharing before the first reading freezes the template against you.

Flex is buying EPC Power for $4.4B, expected to close by year-end, folding 800V datacenter conversion, digital rectifiers, solid-state transformer roadmap, and Agile Grid Forming tech into Flex’s Cloud and Power Infrastructure segment ahead of a planned Q1 2027 spinoff. EPC’s 2024 revenue is projected near $800 million, with a South Carolina inverter plant set to triple M and Mrack output.

On the same week, the Digital Infrastructure Network filed Sept. 4 comments in PUCT Project No. 58482 on the proposed Large Load Demand Management Service under new 16 TAC Section 25.521. DIN backs a voluntary, competitively procured, performance-based service but wants measurement at the qualifying site, not tenant-, rack-, or equipment-specific methods outside customer control, plus clear separation from firm-load-shed under PURA Section 39.170. BloombergNEF’s path runs from roughly 25 GW of data-center draw in 2024 toward 106 GW by 2035; operators short firm supply are pushing private generation and behind-the-meter builds. Fervo Energy’s Cape Station enhanced-geothermal project in Milford, Utah is weeks from commercial operation on a closed-loop, non-potable cycle, with a new Google offtake after a May IPO.

Bottom line: score 58482’s final flexibility language and lock conversion supply before rack density and queue proof standards harden.

Construction Owners reports QTS is committing $250 million over a decade to Texas water infrastructure: direct capital work starting with Turkey, Texas’s water tower (with Lancium at the Hall County Clean Campus), a $15 million, 10-year Bonneville Environmental Foundation partnership on leaks, habitat, and irrigation efficiency, and water-free closed-loop design at new Texas sites.

Temple City Manager Brynn Myers told council the city is using about half its annual water-supply rights; Rowan’s one-time 1.5 million gallon fill per building then recirculates for at least 10 years. Meta’s $1.2B Kuna, Idaho campus is live with more than $100 million in dedicated water and wastewater systems and closed-loop liquid cooling that uses zero water for most of the year, Meta’s second AI-optimized site after Temple, Texas. Central Valley fights keep citing overdraft basins and disputed gallons (RB Inyokern’s application stated 50 acre-feet yearly; residents argued roughly 500,000 gallons per day).

Bottom line: budget water capital and closed-loop proof in the first county packet, or watch carrying cost stack while peers clear.