Meta Halts $800M Data Center Development

Meta’s data center in Temple. Rendering courtesy of Meta

After announcing a combined $2.4 billion in new data center investments this year, Meta has paused construction work at its project in Temple, Texas, Construction Dive first reported.

According to the news report, quoting a Meta spokesperson, construction work was halted because of design changes that need to be implemented.

The project in Temple broke ground in March. It is one of the three new developments totaling $800 million that the technology company announced earlier this year. The other two ongoing projects are a 1 million-square-foot data center in Kansas City, Mo. and a 960,000-square-foot facility in Kuna, Idaho.

Meta’s hyperscale data center is anticipated to create approximately 100 high-paying permanent jobs upon completion, as well as a peak of 1,250 daily construction jobs during its development. The Temple facility is 100 percent supported by renewable energy and will measure 900,000 square feet. It is located on a 393-acre site at the intersection of North-West H.K. Dodgen Loop and Industrial Boulevard.

It is unclear when construction will resume at the upcoming facility. The Temple data center is Meta’s second such facility in the state. The company operates another, 2.6 million-square-foot data center in Fort Worth, which opened in 2017. Meta’s data centers are LEED Gold certified and use approximately 32 percent less energy. The company also invested in the creation of more than 700 megawatts of wind and solar energy in Texas, according to its March press release.

Data center demand still high, while tech jobs falter

Central Texas is among the fastest-growing data center markets in the U.S., according to a recent CBRE report. The San Antonio-Austin market had 75.5 megawatts under construction in the first half of the year, while vacancy was at 1.3 percent—tied with Silicon Valley as the lowest rate in the nation. As for large new projects underway, Prologis and Skybox announced a $500 million data center in Pflugerville earlier this year, targeting enterprise and hyperscale clients.

The tech sector reported a significant reduction in jobs last month. Meta was among several large tech companies that announced job cuts. The company laid off 11,000 workers, a 13 percent reduction of its workforce. Layoffs and pausing of new hiring went hand in hand with a restructuring of office space this year—in Manhattan, Meta announced it cut down on its office footprint by 200,000 square feet at 225 Park Ave. South and halted previously announced office expansion plans.