The former Ardagh Glass bottle plant at 4202 Fidelity St. in Jacinto City was featured in a commercial real estate marketing brochure as a potential site for an AI data center.
N/A/Marcus & Millichap
In a stunning reversal, Jacinto City officials have confirmed that a data center is now being considered for an East Houston suburb, months after city leaders assured worried residents that no such project was coming to the former glass-bottle factory.
“We were stunned,” said City Manager Lon Squyres after learning last week that a data-center developer was negotiating to purchase the property.
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California-based data-center development company Raedon is in negotiations to acquire the old glass bottle factory on 4202 Fidelity St. and convert the site into a hyperscale data center, Squyres said.
No contracts have been signed and the deal is not final. But the proposal comes amid months of resident pushback over the prospect of a massive data center settling into that facility. Because the property is privately owned and has zoning clearance for a data center, city officials acknowledge they may not be able to stop the project.
Proposed data center located at 4202 Fidelity St. in Jacinto City, Texas.
Macy Meinhardt
“We don’t own the site so it’s not like we’re making the call,” said Squyres, “but we’re not just rolling over [either].”
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Instead, city officials are preparing a series of ordinances to mitigate potential neighborhood impact. The city has also scheduled a Sept. 11 town hall with Raeden’s president to address concerns with residents directly.
“We’re not like other data centers”
Raeden is a real estate company that specializes in finding vacant or underused properties and converting them into data centers, according to its website.
The company currently has facilities in Florida, Arizona, and Michigan, and is currently pursuing larger projects in Colorado, North Carolina and potentially Texas.
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During a meeting with Jacinto City officials at the proposed site last week, Raeden President Jason Green told Squyres that the company “does things the right way.”
Housing on nearby Flaxman St. shows close proximity of surrounding neighborhoods.
Google Maps
That includes addressing some of the biggest concerns that have fueled opposition to data centers elsewhere, Squyres said.
Raedon states on its website that these concerns are a product of “rampant misinformation and disinformation combined with real reports of data center malpractice.”
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The company has compiled an explanatory page of the most common questions asked by residents and elected officials, with sections dedicated to addressing their usage of water and power, as well as noise levels.
The back and forth
The latest development marks another turn in the controversy surrounding 4202 Fidelity St.
Chron reported in May that the former glass-bottle plant was being marketed as a potential hyperscale data center, prompting significant backlash from residents.
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City officials subsequently sought to calm those fears, assuring residents that no data-center negotiations were underway.
The city also passed a formal resolution opposing data centers in early July.
Behind the scenes, however, city officials said they were confident another company–completely unrelated to data centers–would be moving into that facility.
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“We thought it was a done deal,” Squyres said.
That deal ultimately fell through, making way for Raeden negotiations to begin.
Now city officials are faced with a project they say they don’t want but may not have the legal authority to block.
“Nobody wants a data center, including us,” Squyres said; however, “if we can’t prevent it, we’re going to try to mitigate the problems.”
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Mitigation tools the city has discussed include plans to draft ordinances regulating potential air, noise and light pollution, as well as water use and electricity demand during peak periods or extreme weather.
Squyres said the city also will not sign a nondisclosure agreement with the developer or offer tax incentives or abatements.
Residents are invited to share their opinions and ask questions regarding the data center plans at an upcoming town hall on Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. located at Jacinto City Town Center, 1025 Oats Rd.
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