 and [BlackChamber Group](https://baxtel.com...](https://cdn.baxtel.com/data-center/project-longhorn-files-366m-first-building-at-anthropic-linked-texas-campus/logo/project-longhorn-files-366m-first-building-at-anthropic-linked-texas-campus-featured.jpg){kind=logo}
The first data center building at the 2,842-acre Cedar Creek campus being developed by Pacifico Energy and BlackChamber Group is on file with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The October 7 filing, reported by Community Impact, outlines a $366 million building at the Bastrop County site that Anthropic is reportedly in talks to lease.
The filing
Dubbed Project Longhorn - Building One, the one-story, 498,165 sq ft data center would rise on Earl Callahan Road near Walter Hoffman Road in Cedar Creek, about 26 miles southeast of downtown Austin and seven miles southeast of where EdgeConneX is building its own campuses. The filing sets a construction window of November 30, 2026 to January 31, 2028, with civil site work and structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire infrastructure in scope, according to DCD. It is the first of two buildings planned for the property at 382 Earl Callahan Road.
No tenant is named in the filing.
The campus and its power plant
Rendering of Pacifico Energy's proposed hyperscale data center and energy campus in Cedar Creek, Bastrop County.
Black Chamber Partners, an affiliate of Washington, D.C.-based BlackChamber Group, is developing the data center portion, while Pacifico Energy, the energy arm of California-based Pacifico Group, is developing the power plant. Public documents tied to the development describe a 710 MW gas-fired facility delivering site-rated redundant power, enough to support roughly 490 MW of data center load, The Real Deal reported. The campus would run independently of the ERCOT grid. Total investment has been estimated at $2.2 billion.
Pacifico is also the developer behind GW Ranch, a 5 GW private-grid campus in Pecos County, more than 300 miles west of Austin. GW Ranch secured a 7.65 GW air permit from state environmental regulators in January, which the company calls the largest power generation permit issued in the United States. Baxtel tracks seven BlackChamber development sites in Northern Virginia.
The Anthropic connection
Anthropic has been working with BlackChamber and Pacifico on the development, sources told the Austin Business Journal in August, though no lease has been finalized. The talks follow Anthropic's reported $9 billion data center lease in Milam County, northeast of Austin, a deal The Real Deal says could scale to $16 billion. Baxtel reported last month that OpenAI and Anthropic are targeting 20 to 30 MW deployments for some workloads, even as both labs lease far larger campuses.
The developers in August withdrew county and school district tax abatement applications, a move The Real Deal attributes to Anthropic's desire to work with local officials and the community. The project now plans to pay full property taxes from day one.
Opposition and a statewide pause
Neighbors have challenged the project since midsummer. Two couples whose properties are surrounded by the site filed motions in July asking state environmental regulators to overturn two construction stormwater permits covering a 304-acre portion of the campus, Community Impact reported. The permits "authorize large-scale land changes before adjacent landowners have had the opportunity to review the final drainage plans," the couples argued. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had not ruled on the motions as of the latest report.
Bastrop County commissioners have twice tabled a resolution asking the Texas Legislature for expanded authority over large industrial projects. "The subject matter is too important to not get it right," said Michele Gangnes, co-founder of the League of Independent Voters of Texas, urging commissioners to wait.
The project also has to clear a statewide pause. Governor Greg Abbott in September directed agencies to pause regulatory approvals for data center developments while ERCOT and other state agencies complete audits of proposed projects, according to Community Impact's state reporter. The pause had held up permits for the Cedar Creek campus, the Austin Business Journal reported, but the October 7 filing suggests the project is moving ahead anyway. Water service advanced in August, when Aqua WSC approved a resolution toward a Non-Standard Service Agreement for the project.
A corridor under construction
Cedar Creek is already one of the busiest data center corridors in Texas. EdgeConneX is developing three campuses spanning nearly 1,500 acres seven miles northwest of the Pacifico site, where construction filings now total $5.8 billion and CoreWeave is expected to occupy the first $440 million building, per the San Antonio Express-News. Four more EdgeConneX buildings were filed in August, and its Bastrop County presence could top a dozen buildings at full build-out. Baxtel tracks six EdgeConneX buildings in Cedar Creek, including AUS01, a 96 MW facility under construction, plus two 100 MW buildings underway. Amazon holds a 1,300-acre land bank site in the area, and materials from a July town hall tied more than 5,500 acres around Cedar Creek to planned or proposed data center projects.
The wider Austin market counts 95 facilities run by 35 providers, 26 of them under construction, per Baxtel data.
Why it matters
Cedar Creek is becoming the template for how large AI campuses get built in Texas now: bring your own power, skip the tax breaks, and keep filing. A 710 MW private gas plant paired with a full-rate property tax posture answers the two loudest political objections to the data center buildout, grid strain and abatement fatigue, inside a single project design. State officials auditing the industry and neighbors suing over drainage plans have not stopped it.
