Project dossier · Tyler (Smith County), Texas

West Erwin Street data center (Barrio Resources) Denied

Special use permit for a bitcoin-mining data center on ~1.92 acres near downtown (W. Erwin St & N. Ross Ave) denied 5-2 by the Planning & Zoning Commission - staff found it inconsistent with the Future Land Use Map and comprehensive plan, after resident opposition over water, noise, and proximity to homes. Applicant may appeal.

Key facts

Filing LLC: Barrio Resources LLC
Size: 1 ac
Location: Tyler (Smith County), Texas
Decided: 2026-07-07
Stage today: Denied

Source
read 2026-08-07

What to do next

Next step: Denied — watch for a re-filing or a scaled-down resubmission; ask the clerk to add you to the notification list.

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What has happened so far (8 events)

2024-08-22announcement
Barrio Energy announced acquisition of a 12 MW data center property west of downtown Tyler, its fifth Texas site within ERCOT; president Ivan Pinney called Tyler 'an ideal location.' · source
2026-06-15announcement
A community meeting was announced for the proposed data center at 1101-1105 W. Erwin Street; the Planning & Zoning public hearing was set for July 7 at 1:30 p.m. · source
2026-06-16hearing
Vulcan Core and Barrio held a community input meeting on W. Erwin Street; developer Mark Buntsev claimed no negative effects on homes, projected $550,000/year in electricity taxes and 7-10 jobs; residents questioned water use, noise, and site selection. · source
2026-06-17coverage
Tyler Morning Telegraph reported project specs: eight 40-ft containers (four computing, four cooling), 12 MW capacity, MicroBT mining equipment, closed-loop cooling with no municipal water use, and an independent acoustic study claiming 35 dB at the nearest house vs. 45 dB ambient. · source
2026-06-19coverage
Tyler mayor-elect Stuart Hene, who won the runoff with 57% of the vote, said the data center proposal on West Erwin Street would face 'an uphill battle' after attending the developer's community meeting. · source
2026-07-07vote
Tyler P&Z denied the special use permit 5-2. Planning staff: 'inconsistent with the Future Land Use Map and the Tyler Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan.' Residents cited water use, noise, and proximity to surrounding homes. · source
2026-07-08coverage
Tyler Morning Telegraph detailed the 3.5-hour hearing: 26 residents spoke against the project and 5 in favor (including 2 Vulcan Core representatives); planning director Kyle Kingma found the proposal inconsistent with the Future Land Use Map and comprehensive plan; Chairman David Hudson noted the applicant may appeal to City Council. · source
2026-07-18coverage
The Cooldown reported on the denial, quoting resident Hannah Morris: 'We were told that it's a close-knit system, but water doesn't magically appear'; noted residents anticipate the developer will appeal. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Texas TCEQ — Air Permits DivisionThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
TCEQ Central RegistrySearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Tyler (Smith County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Tyler (Smith County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

ERCOT (Texas) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Public Utility Commission of Texas — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 32.350, -95.300 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Texas

Compass Datacenters Red Oak campus — Red Oak (Ellis County), 88 mi Approved
Google Red Oak — Red Oak, 88 mi Operating
Google Midlothian — Midlothian, 98 mi Under construction
CoreWeave Denton TX — Denton, 122 mi Operating
OpenAI Stargate Milam — Milam County, 145 mi Operating

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “West Erwin Street data center (Barrio Resources)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/erwin-street-tyler-tx, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).