The data center boom has heads turning to land south of Dallas-Fort Worth.
About 5,900 acres is on the market near Waxahachie, just south of the metroplex. Several parcels are for sale. Two adjacent sites span about 2,200 acres about a 40-minute drive from downtown Dallas. Another 3,700 acres is on the market near Midlothian in Ellis County and Venus in Johnson County, the Dallas Business Journal reported.
The vast majority of Ellis and Johnson County parcels is owned by rancher, landowner and oilman Richard Miskimon, the outlet reported, citing public records. Miskimon owns several parcels throughout North Texas and sells Brahman cattle at the Miskimon Ranch in Southern Oklahoma.
The land, most of which was listed in the last month, is marketed as ideal for data centers and energy companies, said Roxanne Marquis of data center-focused commercial real estate firm 8888cre.com in Dallas. Companies are showing interest in developing on 400 acres or more, she said.
Two high-voltage powerlines run near the Midlothian land, with the Venus substation and 1,650-megawatt Midlothian Energy facility off U.S. Route 67.
Dallas-Fort Worth is the second-biggest data center market in the nation, behind northern Virginia.
Google built a $600 million data center close to the land near Midlothian in 2019. The tech giant invested $1 billion in Texas data center and cloud infrastructure projects this year, including a $600 million data center in Red Oak, also in Ellis County.
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Dallas-based Compass Datacenters is building a $100 million, 250,000-square-foot facility on a 200-acre tract east of Interstate 35, while Dallas-based DataBank is building out its 292-acre data center site for $256 million, both in Red Oak.
— Judah Duke