Citizens Speak on Emergent/Skybox's SAI

 

The above video is cued to begin with citizen comment from the 4-22-26 public meeting on the Skybox/Emergent Data Center project in northeast San Angelo.  

Prior to public comment Mayor Thompson interviewed two gentlemen from Emergent Data Centers, Skybox's developer/sales agent.  The project is marketed as having "exceptional municipal support" and a "municipal partnership built for speed."

As someone who has tried to get information on economic development incentives since December 2025 I'd like to add "secrecy" to "speed."  I submitted that question for the public meeting but leadership chose not to address it in their infomercial.  

I had to leave as public comment was starting as I needed to go home and take care of animals.  I must say residents of San Angelo, Abilene Tom Green and surrounding counties spoke eloquently and passionately.  Bravo.  The video is worth watching.

The meeting deteriorated at the end when San Angelo Live's Joe Hyde chose to insult the crowd.

If that's your champion, I'm not sure you are on the right side.  Hyde ran for Tom Green County Judge against Lane Carter but lost.

Mayor Thompson did not have Hyde escorted out, instead Tom closed with:

"We are finished with public comment. Thank goodness." 

Box checked.  I'm afraid that means it's over.  

Dove Creek's Shawn Nanny (Tom Green County Commissioner) spoke simply and passionately against Beacon Data Centers locating in his community.  San Angelo's Joe Hyde trashed a public meeting with name calling against people doing the same as Nanny.  

It's a stain that taints and that may have been the aim.  End the show with a dookie. 

Note:  There are four data centers under consideration, one in San Angelo and three more in Tom Green County (source:  COSADC board meeting presentation by Michael Looney on 4-8-26).  

Tom Green County is asking for the ability to act on behalf of its citizens in shepherding local resources, water, power, etc..

The initial post had Joe Hyde as a mayoral candidate against Thompson.  That was incorrect and the post updated to show Hyde ran for County Judge but lost.  Had he won he might be shepherding the development of three data centers and not asking the state legislature for the ability to protect citizens from data center harm. 12:10 pm on 4-24-26

Emergent Data Center Show at McNease Convention Center

San Angelo Mayor Tom Thompson interviewed two executives from Emergent Data Center, CEO Chris Sumter and Chief Technology Officer Mike Coleman, about the proposed Skybox Data Center project in the Northeast portion of town.  This followed a presentation by Planning & Development Director Aaron Vannoy on ordinance changes based on development research from other communities with current and proposed data centers.

The Mayor's structured interview covered the following areas:

• Emergent Executives background
• Why San Angelo
• Water Use
• Noise Mitigation
• Construction
• Operation - jobs created
• Grid - electricity impact
• Community responsibility
• Tax revenue (no specifics given)

The panel discussion had several explicit sales pitches embedded in it as well as promises to solve any problems that arose.  There was no indication that any panel member thought the project itself was problematic for San Angelo and this part of West Texas.  

Not addressed by the panel or the city's planning director:  economic development incentives currently under consideration for the project.  

I submitted that question on April 9th using the online form:

Please provide information about any public subsidies, direct or indirect, that the city is providing or plans to consider to support the development of the Skybox/Emergent Data Center. I submitted a public information request to this effect in December 2025 but have received no response at the City of San Angelo appealed to the Texas Attorney General to keep such information confidential.

It's interesting that city leaders can share research on design parameters from other cities but not on economic development incentives.  Last night's meeting would have been the perfect opportunity for city leaders to share their thinking in this arena.  They expressly have not to date and likely won't until it goes before Council for an up or down vote.  The hint that tax breaks will be included is the five to six year time frame to accrue community financial benefit.

I did learn that Chris Sumter started Emergent after a meeting with a private equity firm, something like Emphoric Capital.  Also, the city may steer its reclaimed water to the project (away from Wall farmers).  Whoever Emergent/Skybox leases the data center to may or may not pay sales taxes on the equipment they place in the facility (currently a State of Texas tax break).  The Mayor said it is not the city's right to demand anything from the company in terms of good community relations.

The city posted documents relative to the meeting/project.  Emergent mentioned "exceptional municipal support" and a "municipal partnership built for speed."

That bodes poorly for those wishing a moratorium on data center construction, requests made at the April 21st City Council meeting (as well as over the last six months).  

On April 8th Chamber Vice President  Michael Looney informed the City of San Angelo Development Corporation board that four data centers are shopping locally, Emergent in city limits and three others outside the city in Tom Green County.  In that same meeting Looney cited the potential to "brand San Angelo as a potential location for other data centers."

I was unable to stay for the public comment portion of the meeting but hope to view the video.  At least I got to hear the commercial.  

Dove Creek Tells Beacon Data Centers to Go Elsewhere

A crowd of several hundred showed up for Beacon Data Centers' public meeting on their proposed Dove Creek Technology Campus project.  Virtually all were in opposition, including Tom Green County Commissioner Shawn Nanny.

Four56 Church hosted the meeting and their pastor shared information about the church and the kind of behavior decent people show one other.  

Beacon's representatives led with their intention of being a good steward.  Mark Attinger of The Attinger Group and Attinger Construction served as the local face for the project.  

Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Origination Joseph Shovlin was the Irish voice of Beacon, an affiliate of Nadia Partners.  

They stated their intent to be involved in the community and fund important infrastructure projects/local organizations.  They also made it clear they wanted to hear community concerns so the project could take those wishes into account early in the design phase.  And then they opened it up for questions.

The first question arose around noise levels.  EVP Shovlin said they were not prepared to discuss specifics at this stage in the project development as they had not even determined the size of the project or where it would be sited on the property, which is a large tract at the corner of Highway 67 South (between San Angelo and Mertzon) and FM Road 2335.

  

At that point attendees got the impression that few actual details would be shared in the major concern areas of noise, traffic, electricity, water, wastewater treatment, impact on property values, local economy, emissions and infrastructure needs.  

And they were mostly correct in that conclusion, however the following notable items were shared:

Water - At this stage they believe their water needs will be met from the existing water rights to several hundred acre feet from Spring Creek, dam reconstruction, mesquite eradication and rainwater harvesting.  They said their are no plans to utilize groundwater.  Surface water means the Concho River Watermaster and TCEQ.  Apparently there are two diversion points, one on each side of the creek of the existing property.

I spoke with Vice President of Corporate Affairs Lauren Armstrong after the meeting and shared the vagaries of surface water dependability in West Texas.  We lose creek flow completely due to upstream irrigation.  The irrigation stops and the creek flows again.  And we are far closer to the headwaters than Beacon's site.  That said, there are springs up and down the creek but many spots are dry for months at a time upstream of the Dove Creek Technology Campus.  She said they would haul in water for their daily needs if needed.

"We are not for sale." 

Power - The Beacon model is 100% natural gas turbine power generation.  They need to tie into a natural gas pipeline and that is part of the project's feasibility assessment.  

"Go away."

Wastewater - There would be a wastewater treatment facility onsite.

"We don't want you."

Traffic - There would be no access to the property down 2335.  The entrance would be just after the railroad tracks and new roads would be built within the property to meet their construction and operating needs.  They floated a reworking of the dangerous curve at 67 & 2335 as a public benefit of the project.

"Please leave us alone." 

Beacon will complete their environmental studies over the next four months (traffic, noise, emissions, water, wastewater) and share the results.  

Meanwhile they will take into account the information shared in the community meeting, all except "go away."  After all they are developers and Texas officials have said the state is open for business.

Update:  ConchoValleyHomepage ran a story on the meeting.

Update 4-18-26:  One Texas water well driller is worried about the impact of data centers.

Dove Creek Next for Data Center?

Concho Valley Homepage reported on the prospect of another data center, this time in Dove Creek.  Beacon Data Centers is considering building a data center in this rural area and will hold a community meeting at a local church.    

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, at The Four56 Church, located at 13218 Westcross Lane. 

Beacon is backed by Nadia Partners, a Canadian private equity underwriter (PEU).  Nadia has another affiliate, Dromore Energy, that does solar power with battery storage.  

It happens that two projects, Dove Creek Solar and Dove Creek Storage are active projects under ERCOT and both expect a June 2028 completion date.

There is no information indicating these projects are part of the Dromore Energy portfolio, however their existence makes the AI data center more attractive.

Dove Creek has very limited fire/emergency response capabilities relative to those needed by a data center or a battery storage facility, should either catch on fire.  Water is more limited, as well.  

County Commissioner Shawn Nanny plans to attend.  The article quoted Nanny:

“I told them I am getting phone calls left and right, I don’t have any information to give them,” Nanny said. “I told them ya’ll have got to have one meeting immediately followed up by several meetings, but the ball is in their court. I am not conducting this meeting; the only say-so I had was please have a meeting so the people can hear about you.”

Citizens need to hear from County officials as well regarding public infrastructure needed to support such data centers.  That includes County Judge Lane Carter, Commissioner Nanny and County Emergency Response leadership.  

Dove Creek residents should not be managing all aspects of data center development alone.  Elected officials cannot abdicate their responsibility to balance data center desires with community needs and priorities.  One key priority is affordable water and electricity.  At a minimum, Tom Green County officials should be there to speak to that.

Update 4-15-26:   The land is between two surface water sources for the City of San Angelo, Dove Creek and Spring Creek.  

The State of Texas allows landowners to drill wells and potentially take as much as they want.  

In Texas, corporations have significant rights to pump groundwater under the "Rule of Capture," allowing unlimited use for beneficial purposes unless limited by local Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs).

It remains to be seen if the Dove Creek location falls within an existing Groundwater Conservation District.   

The site is either just inside the Lipan-Kickapoo WCD or just outside it.

Update 4-16-26:  The community of Dove Creek expressed their near universal opposition to the Beacon AI data center.  County Commissioner Shawn Nanny closed public feedback by joining his constituents in opposing the project.  

Kerr County Disaster Coordinator Retires March 31st

Houston Public Media reported:

Kerr County’s emergency coordinator, Will Thomas, said he was ill and asleep as floodwaters began to rise and didn’t participate in early response calls on July 3. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha also said he was asleep as the river rose, while Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who oversees emergency management, said he was out of town.

And no first responder went to their home and knocked on the door?

William "Dub" Thomas is retiring effective March 31, 2026.   County Judge Rob Kelly, also retiring, said they would miss Dub and that Dub cannot be replaced.  I would say as Emergency Management Coordinator Dub was critical to the "asleep, asleep, out of town" leadership approach to the County's flood disaster response on July 4, 2025.

The first disaster was the abject failure to respond, to set up a command post and coordinate efforts in a timely manner.  The second was a failure of communication regarding actions not taken and not holding responsible people accountable.  The third was a failure to drill for flash flooding under Dub's tenure (as the County could produce no documents of such).

The County and Dub are yet to release their "after action" report on the July 4th flood disaster.  Conducting such evaluations are a basic in the emergency response arena.   It could happen in the next four days, but I doubt it.  This transitioned to an accountability avoidance/liability minimization exercise long ago.  

These are the words that welcomed Dub to his role with Kerr County in 2015:

This is very important, the position that Dub has as Emergency Management Coordinator. The City has an Emergency Management Coordinator; now the County has an Emergency Management Coordinator. These are the guys that are literally in charge if there's an emergency, a major fire,  major flood or whatever. And as the Sheriff pointed out the other day, the document is this thing, so Dub helped to  prepare that. So, I think this county, with Dub in place, and with the city there, it's taken us a year to redo this thing, but I think this county is going to have the best emergency management plan probably in the state. So, welcome, Dub.

Those words did not hold up so well.  All hat (plan), no cattle (implementation-flood drill or actual response). 

Update 3-30-26:  Hill Country Community Journal reported:

Thomas was authorized to purchase his county service weapon, a Glock 45, for $100 under a state law permitting such sales to honorably retired law enforcement officers.

Update 4-15-26:  A director of Camp Mystic testified that he:

"had not seen the official weather warnings before the storm, did not convene a staff meeting about the potential flooding and acknowledged that the camp did not have a detailed, written flood evacuation plan."

The cascade of ignorance and lack of preparation was widespread in Kerr County. 

Update 4-16-26:  The Texas Rangers have joined the case regarding camper deaths at Camp Mystic.  So far, local emergency officials inability to do their job has been overlooked by investigators.  Kerr County is yet to release an after action report on their disaster "response" on July 4, 2025.

Update 4-20-26:  Texas Tribune reported Camp Mystic's security guard testified as to events that evening/early morning:

The security guard at Camp Mystic the night of last year’s deadly flood acknowledged Wednesday that if a general evacuation order came early in the storm, lives could’ve been saved.

Update 4-22-26:  KXAN reported: 

According to the House’s resolution, the committee would be tasked with investigating contributing factors, allocation of resources, effectiveness of preparedness and effectiveness of response and coordination between local, state and federal entities. The Senate’s resolution called for a broader “complete and thorough examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding the flooding events.”

So how did this broad mandate get reduced to summer camps?   It appears there may never be an assessment of Kerr County emergency official's response (non-response) to the disaster. 

SA1 Data Center Has Layers

Chamber Executive Michael Looney informed the Development Corporation that the data center project needed work locally (on the 380 economic development agreement) and at the state level (approval for the plan to provide power/electricity for the project).  

Looney also talked about the recent Economic Summit, which had a panel on the data center project.  Mayor Tom Thompson moderated the panel with three representatives from Emergent Data Centers. 

Looney did not mention the data center at all in the Economic Summit section of his report.  

Emergent is actively marketing the San Angelo data center project to potential users.

Their documentation cites major solar generation projects in the area and the opportunity to contract directly for that power.  Meta is buying the power produced by Apex Clean Energy's solar farm in Tom Green County.  Apex is backed by Ares Management.

Looney also informed the Development Corporation that Peregrine Energy's battery farm would begin construction in Q4 2027.  Council gave that project an 85% tax abatement for three years.  Peregrine is backed by KKR.

Doral Renewables is behind another solar farm in the area.  Doral is backed by Apollo.

Skybox projects in other areas have been funded by BlueOwl, which has had a rough go of late.  Looney has frequently cited private equity (Ares, KKR, Apollo, Blueowl) as being very interested in our area.  There is currently a private equity funded spec building project in the Industrial Park.  

City Council took up leasing the land for the proposed Skybox/Emergent data center for $1 million per year beginning November 1, 2026.  The City already has a letter of agreement with Skybox for the possible sale of the land.  The State of Texas needs more than a letter of agreement to provide power via ERCOT and AEP, thus the lease.  

All lease proceeds will go towards the purchase price.  

Emergent's CEO offered the following during the Chamber's Economic Summit:

"It's the Skybox project and Emergent is the developer."

"We're looking for a home to build a campus for one of the Big Five (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google) .... one will lease the building from us.... We will be building for the next seven years."

As for the specific usage and the servers purchased, that will be determined by the eventual occupant.  

The public should know that there are three potential recipients of subsidies and tax breaks, Skybox, Emergent and the final occupant.  The 380 agreement is under negotiation between the City and Skybox.  

Once Emergent is successful in landing one of the Big Five, that company may request subsidies and/or tax breaks as their investment will be magnitudes greater than the buildings themselves. 

This data center project has layers.  Critical elements remain that need to be addressed for it to move forward.   

A Texas State Senator (Red Team) called for an immediate pause in data center development.  Issues cited include water, power and transparency.  The Senator called for the pause so "rural areas can evaluate effects on critical resources and infrastructure."

Update:  An Ohio Senator (Red Team) called out The Carlyle Group, another PEU, for accepting a  "$4.5 million state tax break for a data center expansion project in Northeast Ohio. Despite Carlyle’s investment, the project will only create ten new jobs."

Update 3-21-26:  ConchoValleyHomepage did a story on City Council's approval of the land lease to our possible data center.  

Update 4-8-26:  Add Nadia Partners and its affiliate Beacon AI Centers to the list of private equity underwriter (PEU) projects.  Beacon will be meeting with Dove Creek residents about a possible project.  

Water is a much greater issue for a rural area which does not have access to numerous water sources (like the City of San Angelo).  Nadia has another affiliate that develops solar power and battery storage, Dromore Energy.

Update 4-16-26:  Beacon AI public meeting is scheduled for this evening at the Four56 Church in Dove Creek.  The Skybox/Emergent data center public meeting is scheduled for 4-22 at 5:00 pm at the McNease Convention Center.  

Skybox Backing Out of Land Purchase?

Skybox Data Centers may not buy that 350 acres northeast of town for $17.4 million after all.  City Council has a possible lease of the land to San Angelo Data Center Campus Power LLC on its closed agenda for their March 17 meeting.

One year ago this same City Council approved a letter of intent to sell the land to Skybox Data Centers for $50,000 per acre.  This has not happened.  

Data center financing has become more problematic given the obscene sums of money required.  BlueOwl, a funder of other Skybox projects, has had a difficult run this year.  That means less capital for projects.  Asking the city to avoid the $17.4 million land sale and provide a reasonable lease amount could save big money on the project.  It also takes away a financial plum for pursuing the project.

Mayor Tom Thompson has said that people need to wait for the 380 (economic development) agreement, which many assumed would be after or in conjunction with the land sale.  

The big money behind these projects, solar/battery, data centers, often want to get out within 5-7 years with a handsome profit.  If the city keeps and leases the land, in ten years it may have a giant eyesore for which it is responsible.  Time will tell, unless there is a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).  An NDA could keep all but a few people in the dark forever.  

Update:  Chamber Executive Michael Looney spoke at the Development Corporation and shared that the 380 economic development agreement with Skybox needs a lot more work and that the state needs to respond to the project's power request/proposal.  Apparently, things are on track and a property lease enables progress to be made while those two fronts, the 380 and state power approval via ERCOT and AEP.

Skybox is the owner of the project and Emergent Data Centers is the developer.  Members of the Emergent Team were interviewed by the Mayor at the Economic Development Summit put on by the Chamber.