Meta-BlackRock El Paso Data Center Proposed
$10B+ Meta-BlackRock strategic venture; 4,000 peak construction jobs, capacity beginning 2028.
Key facts
- Operator
- Meta
- Owner
- BlackRock
- Tenant
- Meta
- Location
- El Paso, Texas
- First proposed
- 2026-07-01
- Stage today
- Proposed
Source
read 2026-08-19
What to do next
Next step: Early stage. File a public-records request for the application and site plan.
What has happened so far (1 event)
- 2026-07-01announcement
Meta announced $10B+ strategic venture with BlackRock to develop data center in El Paso; 4,000 peak construction jobs, capacity beginning 2028. · 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 El Paso 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 El Paso 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 31.760, -106.440 — 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.
Recent news
25 stories tracked since 2026-07-29 across 13 outlets. 23× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 1× Residents question property-value hits and local benefit. Most recent: “Hudpeth County confirms: new $15B data center being built near Far East El Paso County” (KFOX, 2026-10-10).
- Hudpeth County confirms: new $15B data center being built near Far East El Paso County
- Texas lt. governor addresses data centers during El Paso campaign stop
- Texas Lt. Governor addresses data centers during El Paso campaign stop
- El Paso City Council voices frustration about data centers, sends letter to Gov. Abbott
- Meta to hold eight El Paso meetings this fall as data center agreement talks advance
- Hinojosa Talks Data Centers in El Paso
- RECAP: Gina Hinojosa Talks Data Centers, the Economy, and Schools Campaigning in El Paso
- Hinojosa calls for emergency Texas data-center session: El Paso Matters
- Data center boom enters Texas governor’s race as Meta builds $14B El Paso campus
- Data center boom enters Texas governor’s race as Meta builds $14B El Paso campus
- Data center boom enters Texas governor’s race as Meta builds $14B El Paso campus
- Gina Hinojosa speaks on data centers, affordability in El Paso campaign visit
+13 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 25 headlines archived.
Around here
- El Paso community briefing — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Texas
- Pacifico Energy Glass Mountains data center and gas plant (proposed) — Brewster County, 206 mi Proposed
- Amazon Fort Stockton campus — Fort Stockton (Pecos County), 219 mi Under construction
- Amazon Floydada campus — Floydada (Floyd County), 333 mi In review
- Coreweave Helios — Afton (Dickens County), 370 mi
- Goodnight — Claude (Armstrong County), 377 mi
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Meta-BlackRock El Paso Data Center”, aigridwatch.com/projects/meta-el-paso-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).