University of Dallas planning to build data center near campus

Data center development on the site will yield about $8.2 million in property tax revenue and business personal property tax revenue annually for the city.

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The University of Dallas is partnering with a developer to create a data center hub near campus.

UD is offering up more details on the planned 770,000-square-foot data center campus in Irving, north of State Highway 114 at Braniff Drive. The university is working with KDC, a Dallas-based developer known for major commercial projects, with the aim of delivering the initial data center space within abo

Dallas architecture firm Corgan is leading design for the project, Telios Corp. is the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer and Kimley-Horn is civil engineer. 

Irving City Council voted July 11 in favor of a rezoning request from the university and KDC to allow for the development of the data centers.

In their zoning application, KDC and UD argued the current office market, coupled with the rising prevalence of remote work, limited opportunities for new office development at the site, leaving it essentially un-developable without rezoning.

Data center development on the site will yield about $8.2 million in property tax revenue and business personal property tax revenue annually for the city and create jobs while having a low traffic impact, the partners said in their application.

"The site is an infill location at the mobility crossroads of Dallas-Fort Worth with direct access to multiple major highways, DFW Airport and Love Field," Eric Hage, executive vice president of development at KDC, said in a statement. "Importantly, KDC has confirmed with Oncor that surrounding transmission lines were recently upgraded to offer data center users hyper-scale level power capacity. Those factors, combined with extensive access to fiber, make for a unique and exceptional data center campus."

The campus would be developed in phases, with some buildings expected to deliver as early as 2027.

The campus is the latest data center project in the works in Irving. In April, Irving City Council approved an incentives agreement with Edged Energy for the development of a 165,000-square-foot facility at 505 N. Wildwood Dr.

Data center company QTS Realty Trust LLC also appears to be expanding its campus in the city. According to planning documents filed with the state, the Kansas-based company seems to be adding a two-story building to its 55-acre campus at 6300 Longhorn Dr.

It's all part of a data center building boom in North Texas, which is attracting billions of dollars and eating up scores of acres across the region. DFW already ranks as the nation's second-largest market for data center colocation — leasing sever capacity out to other companies — and has seen power capacity grow 32% year-over-year to 573 megawatts, according to a report by CBRE Group Inc. Data centers under construction across DFW represent another 372 megawatts of power, and 91.8% of the space is pre-leased, CBRE found.

The Irving data center development isn’t the only project KDC is working on in North Texas. Established in 1989, KDC is a commercial real estate firm specializing in corporate offices, data centers and industrial development. The company has developed 154 corporate build-to-suit office and industrial projects totaling more than 37 million square feet for clients such as FedEx, State Farm and JPMorgan Chase.

The firm on July 8 received approval from Richardson City Council to add more apartments at CityLine, a mixed-use campus in Richardson.

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