{"id":183706,"date":"2026-02-27T23:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/183706\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T23:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:47:07","slug":"developer-addressing-citizen-concerns-about-abernathy-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/183706\/","title":{"rendered":"Developer addressing citizen concerns about Abernathy data center"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; Residents and area property owners gathered Thursday night to question the impact of a planned data center off Interstate 27 and FM 54 north of Abernathy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The developer, <a href=\"https:\/\/aligneddc.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/aligneddc.com\/\">Aligned Data Centers<\/a>, said it is aware of community concerns. Executive Vice President David Robinson said he wanted to meet with neighbors in person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis is a big project that\u2019s coming to their community,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cAligned Data Centers is a developer, operator and owner, so we are not selling our data centers. We will continue to be in the community, and we do want to be a good neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Community raises questions and Developers respond <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Residents raised concerns about infrastructure, job opportunities, electricity use, water consumption and developer accountability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Robinson and Cardell Andrews, vice president for land enablement, said Aligned is focused on resource conservation. Andrews said the project will use a closed-loop cooling system designed to limit water use compared to other data centers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cData centers are a part of the solution. We make the grid more resilient. Data centers are also investing those infrastructure improvements,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI\u2019ve built and designed them myself, I know that they do that \u2014 the new technology, as Dave mentioned, sustainability is a key to Aligned, that is something we focus on, something we take pride in,&#8221; Andrews said.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor pledges to protect residents<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Abernathy Mayor Harold Bufe said he would work to ensure the project does not harm residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI own a home in Abernathy, we are not going to do anything that\u2019s going to make our home worthless, we are not going to jeopardize us to not have drinking water,\u201d Bufe said. \u201cAnd if we are able to annex this, it\u2019s going to be a huge impact on the city \u2014 those are things we got to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Transparency on project<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Robinson says as the construction process moves forward this year, transparency will be the key to ensuring this project powers innovation, without leaving Abernathy residents in the dark. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For more information on how Aligned develops data centers and its impact on communities, <a href=\"https:\/\/aligneddc.com\/community\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/aligneddc.com\/community\/\">click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; Residents and area property owners gathered Thursday night to question the impact of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[73540,43817,73541,73539,73543,73544,4145,356,48251,21892,73542,168,170,169,231,9223,17091,5766,4509],"class_list":{"0":"post-183706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-a-i","9":"tag-abernathy","10":"tag-adress","11":"tag-aligned","12":"tag-bufe","13":"tag-cardell","14":"tag-center","15":"tag-data","16":"tag-david","17":"tag-developer","18":"tag-harold","19":"tag-lubbock","20":"tag-lubbock-headlines","21":"tag-lubbock-news","22":"tag-north","23":"tag-project","24":"tag-residents","25":"tag-robinson","26":"tag-transparency"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}