As the use of artificial intelligence continues to grow and the data centers needed to power it become increasingly unpopular among Americans, a fierce battle is being waged in Texas to stop the development of a 1.1-million-square-foot data center just outside Dallas. The project by Virginia-based developer PowerHouse consists of four buildings on an 87.9-acre site along Denton Highway in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Westlake. City officials have greenlit the project, saying in a social media announcement last month they expect it to generate an estimated $5 million annually in revenue for the first 10 years and $7 million annually after that.
They say the facility would also create 75 jobs, while using 54 million gallons of water per year. That is a rather small number compared to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) estimates that a medium-sized data center can consume up to roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes—the equivalent of the water used by a town with a population of 10,000-50,000 people. Westlake homeowners and a nearby Buddhist monastery have expressed concerns about being so close to the planned facility and the impact of the infrastructure on their health and the areas’ noise levels, according to an NBC 5 DFW report.
Residents of the neighboring city of Keller have also expressed skepticism about the project, saying they feel they had no say in a decision that would also impact them. One Keller resident, Jesse Smith, in response to Mayor Ross McMullin, wrote on Facebook that “there’s a not-zero chance that a data center this close to Keller will ‘not’ affect our water supply or electricity supply and rates.” Another resident, Melissa Stafford York, wrote, “It’s crazy that they are supposedly allowed to build this on their fence line where it does not impact them but only their neighbors. It’s like putting a landfill on your fence line by your neighbors’ house.
How is it going to affect them?” McMullin said Westlake’s decision to approve the proposal was also surprising. While vowing to advocate for Keller residents, McMullin admitted to Keller having no zoning or land-use authority over this property, as the data center would sit entirely on Westlake ground. The city of Keller government later wrote on social media that, despite trying to discuss residents’ worries with Westlake officials, their concerns were not “meaningfully addressed.” Westlake officials fired back, saying the proposal for the data center was discussed with Keller officials at a December 2024 meeting attended by former Keller Mayor Armin Mizani and City Manager Aaron Rector, according to the Telegram.
Mizani later wrote on Facebook that the meeting depicted the data center as a proposal, not a final project. On August 12, Keller’s City Council issued a unanimous resolution opposing the data center in Westlake; a few days later, on August 19, it authorized legal action. Lakes at Marshall Ridge homeowners association (HOA), which represents a Keller neighborhood next to where the data center will be built, sued Westlake, along with two residents.
On that same day, a Tarrant County judge issued a temporary restraining order on the project, siding with the plaintiffs who said that moving forward with the project would have caused imminent and irreparable harm to nearby residential property. Westlake officials have promised transparency about the data center project, reassuring residents that they will not feel any financial pain due to the construction. They say the facility will provide an economic boost to the town.
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