Rezoning for $10B data center in southeast Fort Worth goes before City Council
The developers behind a $10 billion data center coming to southeast Fort Worth are returning to the City Council on Tuesday for rezoning requests.
Black Mountain, the Fort Worth-based energy consortium developing a data center and business park, has sought to rezone nearly 500 acres of agricultural land in a fast-growing area between Fort Worth, Everman and Forest Hill.
The developer is scheduled to go before the City Council at its meeting on Feb. 10 to ask for approval on rezoning about 80 acres for the project. The rezoning request is split into two separate agenda items.
These rezoning requests have come with pushback from people like Sue Weston, who owns a historic garden center near the site, and questions from some leaders of Everman and Forest Hill, who wanted more communication from Black Mountain.
Black Mountain was supposed to go before the Fort Worth council on Jan. 13 to request rezoning approval for roughly 42 acres, but that request was postponed after leaders in those nearby cities reached out to Fort Worth District 8 council member Chris Nettles and asked for further discussion about the development.
Another request, for roughly 38 acres, was previously approved by the Fort Worth Zoning Commission.
Stephanie Boardingham, the mayor of Forest Hill, told the Star-Telegram that representatives from her city had a productive meeting with Black Mountain recently. Boardingham plans to be at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
As Black Mountain has worked through the city’s red tape in Fort Worth, the developer also appears to be laying the groundwork for more data centers in North Texas.
A company called Fort Worth Power Core LLC, which lists the same address as Black Mountain’s Fort Worth building and names Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett, has filed regulatory paperwork with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to operate several natural gas power plants in Texas.
The paperwork for some of these power plants – including the one that the company applied to operate near the site of the Fort Worth data center — say that they will provide “power for a new data center.”
Bob Riley, a consultant with Richardson-based Halff who is working on behalf of Black Mountain, has previously told the Star-Telegram that he has not been asked to file any more rezoning requests after the ones on the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting.
