Mr Tulip said:

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For Baylor University, you get a renown educational institution in your town. You get students, professors, other employees, and community engagement. There's a tremendous return.

Even for the golf course (which aren't exactly your shining beacon of responsible land use), you get golf pros, maintenance, facilities, and the ability to play golf, if that's your thing.

For a data center, you get 10 permanent jobs and a way to generate wealth for people who don't live there.

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An average operational data center typically employs between 50 and 200 permanent workers, depending on its capacity and business model. Staffing scales with power (megawatts) and automation, with common workforce benchmarks breaking down as follows:Small Facilities (15 MW): 8 to 15 operational staff.Medium Facilities (520 MW): 15 to 35 operational staff.Large & Hyperscale (20100+ MW): 50 to 200+ employees.The workforce spans several on-site roles, including critical facility technicians, network engineers, facilities management, catering, and 24/7 security personnel.

perrynative said:

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Riesel now in the cross hairs. The coal plant did not provide tax revenue that was projected.

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That is because the coal plant sued the appraisal district to lower their value. They won. The plant is valued very low for what it is.

Mr Tulip said:

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Yeah. Texas just goes ahead and rebates those taxes:

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/08/texas-data-centers-sales-tax-break-billion-dollars/

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The state doesn't have a property tax. Local jurisdictions can give these data centers come some sort of break on property taxes, if they choose.

The state is giving the data centers a sales tax exemption. Of course, if the data centers build and buy whatever they need outside of Texas, the state doesn't get any sale tax revenue anyway.