The infobahn is coming to central Texas – or at least to one 17-mile stretch of highway.
The section of US Highway 79 near the small town of Taylor, where Samsung plans to build a $17 billion semiconductor factory, may be poised to be a destination for more tech facilities, according to the Austin Business Journal. That would draw residential subdivisions, mixed-use properties and commercial projects aimed at serving the communities around them.
While the highway running west from Taylor largely cuts through farmland and the occasional car dealership, the area’s economic boom is more visible on the outskirts of Hutto. That’s where two major projects are in the works: a shovel-ready, 1,486-acre megasite and the 750-acre RCR Taylor Logistics Park, a future industrial park with rail access to the east.
The corridor, about 30 miles northeast of Austin, has plenty of underdeveloped land as well as access to Interstate 35, the state’s Highway 130 and a parallel Union Pacific rail line. Nearby Austin metro area developments include the $550 million Kalahari Resort and Convention Center, the $300 million, 110-acre Mihaus mixed-use project in Round Rock, a new Apple campus in northwest Austin and the Tesla Giga Texas factory in East Austin.
All but the Tesla factory are located in business-friendly, often incentive-wielding Williamson County, where County Judge Bill Gravell told the outlet that he envisions the evolution of the “technology superhighway of the world.”
Samsung’s new plant could be “a new center of gravity for the types of industries that rely upon chips today” John Boyd Jr, principal at Boca Raton, Florida-based site selection firm the Boyd Company, told ABJ. He noted that Texas Instruments plans to build a semiconductor fabrication facility in Sherman, about an hour north of Dallas, where the company is based.
“Texas is really a destination point, in terms of its leading the nation within the semiconductor industry,” Boyd told the outlet. “This industry is really in the global spotlight today given the supply chain crisis.”
Read more
Commercial
New York
In 10 years, homes in Austin, Texas go from bargain-basement to sky-high
Commercial
San Francisco
Tesla moving HQ from Silicon Valley to Austin
[ABJ] — Cindy Winder