COMMUNITY MEETING
The San Marcos community made their voices and frustrations heard at a community meeting hosted by CyrusOne regarding their proposed data center development on Francis Harris Lane. CyrusOne is one of many data centers that are proposing developments in areas surrounding the Hays Energy Power Plant just south of the TRACE housing community.
Developer John Maberry originally purchased the 200-acre property with the intention of attracting home developers. Due to lack of interest from single family homedevelopers, Maberry partnered with CyrusOne to start the data center development plan. The name of the company was disclosed for the first time when they announced an August public meeting. The land at 904 Francis Harris Lane is zoned “Conservation/Cluster,” which allows residential or commercial development with the intention of protecting the area’s environmental features. Maberry brought forth two items to the March Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. One request was an amendment to the Preferred Scenario map to change the land’s classification from “Conservation/ Cluster” to “Commercial/ Employment Low.” The other item was a request for a zoning change from Future Development and Character District 2.5 to “Light Industrial” or another less intense zoning district classification. Both items are needed by the company to begin development. Both items were voted against 8 to 1 at the March Planning and Zoning meeting, with hours of public comment against the then anonymous data center. The Planning and Zoning Committee vote acts as a suggestion to City Council, who casts the deciding vote.
Days before the San Marcos City Council was set to vote on these items relating to the data center, CyrusOne hosted a community meeting at the San Marcos Activity Center. The meeting included a presentation by the company on the proposed rezoning and an opportunity for the public to ask questions.
Over 60 community members attended the meeting along with multiple city council members. No San Marcos community member spoke in favor or support of the proposed data center during the meeting.
CyrusOne had a group of four executives present to give the presentation and answer the community’s questions. This included Bradd Hout, Director of Location and Power for CyrusOne; Lee Timmons, Acquisition Manager for CyrusOne; Laura Cottrell, Environmental Compliance for CyrusOne; and Pamela Madere, Land Use, Real Estate & Government Affairs Attorney at Jackson Walker. Also present in the audience was John Barrow, CyrusOne Manager for Power and Energy for the ERCOT Territory.
“We understand the concerns of this community, given that there has not been a ton of information on the project to date, we’re here to have an open dialog with you,” Timmons said to start the meeting. “I wouldn’t be with you today if I didn’t believe that CyrusOne is a great company that builds world class facilities and operates as a good neighbor in its communities. We want to be a contributing member of San Marcos and we think this is an opportunity to show what it looks like to do business in this town.”
Bradd Hout started the presentation with an overview of the current data centers run by CyrusOne and an explanation of the technologies used in the data center.
CyrusOne is a global data center developer and operator with over 50 data centers across North America, Europe and Asia with headquarters in Dallas. Their Texas regional footprint includes 288 direct employees in Texas. Hout mentioned tax revenues from the San Antonio CyrusOne data centers and Francis Harris Lane resident Abigail Lindsey spoke up questioning the numbers, claiming she found different data.
“A lot of our facilities rely on CyrusOne employees, but also contractors, service firms to make sure that our facilities are maintained and operating at utmost quality,” Hout said.
“One very important aspect of our data center operations is that we don’t use water for cooling. We use an air cooled closed looped system. So the system is filled once and then essentially operates for the lifespan with a little bit of makeup water and the makeup water is fed into the system via the threequarter- inch filter.”
The water usage will be for cooling servers and domestic use. The presentation included a comparison to the original failed home development plan and claimed the data center would use 53% less water in terms of allocation compared to the single family home community projected use.
“We have the ability to present a project, develop a project that uses less water, has the need for less services, and has an exponential more amount of property tax revenue and revenue generating potential, and also the ability to create jobs and that’s jobs for people that are living in this region,” Hout said. “ The jobs that we create run the full spectrum of experience levels. Many of them, most of them don’t require a college degree, many of them come from trades. They come from people who have mechanical, electrical planning backgrounds, who have the ability to work in our data center and have upward career mobility to work into a data center focused role.”
Abigail Lindsey asked Hout what the hourly wage is for data center security personnel.
“It’ll vary by region. I don’t know off the top of my head, but it’s competitive,” Hout said.
Hout explained the data center runs 24/7 so they would have security present at all times. In CyrusOne’s presentation they claimed there is potential for up to five data center buildings, which would employ multiple security guards at each building.
At this point in the presentation San Marcos residents started voicing their concerns and asking questions. One citizen questioned the comparison between water usage of the proposed data centers compared to the original plans for single-family homes.
“There’s no doubt we’ll use more power [compared to the single family home development],” Hout said. “There’s no secret, it’s exponentially more power.”
Citizens questioned the water usage, asking for clarification on what the water is being used for and how much.
“What’s projected or what’s assigned to this parcel is 170,000 gallons per day,” Hout said. “It goes to flushing the toilets and washing hands.” The presentation slide said that 75,000 gallons per day were allocated for the data center. "Depending on the size of the building that would be four to seven thousand [gallons of water allocated] depending on the day per building."
San Marcos residents questioned how 75,000 gallons of water a day could be used for just domestic use. Hout then presented the site plan for the 200 acres at Francis Harris Lane, which CyrusOne plans to invest $1.5 billion dollars in to build the facility. There is an existing historic cemetery which would have a protection zone created for it. CyrusOne’s goal is to create a minimum of 20 new direct hires.
The CyrusOne team prepared slides on their sustainability plan. The presentation derailed as citizens started to propose more questions to the CyrusOne employees. One resident questioned the purpose of the data center. Others asked about the impact the data center will have on San Marcos wildlife habitats as well as potential issues caused by construction, water, power usage, noise and light pollution.
A resident said that BlackRock Global Infrastructure Partners is now a major investor in CyrusOne, which Hout confirmed.
At one point Assistant City Manager Joe Pantalion rose from the crowd to answer the community’s questions about the future of water access in San Marcos.
Concerned citizens have created the Data Center Action Coalition, which provides updates and information on the multiple proposed data centers. They have hosted community information sessions where subject matter experts discuss potential impacts of data centers with the public.
There will be a Community Information Session Aug. 17 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the San Marcos Public Library. The coalition is also planning a public march for water and a sustainable future on Tuesday August 19 from City Park to City Hall at 4 p.m. before the City Council meeting at 6 p.m.
The vote for the two zoning items proposed by CyrusOne are on the agenda for the upcoming city council meeting.
