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The City of Starbase will consider a property tax abatement for a SpaceX gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility at its Dec. 9 meeting. SpaceX proposes to build, own and operate the project on a 444-acre tract east of Brownsville, Texas, with an estimated $24 billion investment for the ini
Featured: Wide panoramic aerial view of SpaceX's Starbase facilities and industrial grounds in Cameron County, Texas.tial phases, according to a City of Starbase public hearing notice.
The notice names Space Exploration Technologies Corp. as the applicant and states that SpaceX "proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility."
The commission meets at 7 p.m. on Dec. 9 at 48491 State Highway 4 in Starbase to consider a property tax abatement under Chapter 312 of the Texas Tax Code and a related economic development agreement. The tract lies between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville, in Cameron County and inside the Cameron County Enterprise Zone. SpaceX says the project would be built in phases and could include future expansions.
The notice does not state the plant's capacity, name a computing customer or give a construction schedule. The Rio Grande Valley Business Journal reported that Trinity Consultants filed an air permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on SpaceX's behalf for a new pollution source, with 35 natural gas turbines capable of producing 748 MW. Those figures describe a permit filing, not a plant under construction.
The property entered Starbase's city limits in August, when Brownsville commissioners approved disannexing the 444 acres, KRGV reported. At the same meeting, Brownsville approved a separate agreement that could provide up to $220 million from SpaceX for water and wastewater projects. Because Starbase annexed the land, the data center moratoriums that Brownsville and Harlingen passed in 2026 do not apply, the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal reported.
Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a statewide data center moratorium, and Quartz reported that her election could create headwinds for SpaceX's plans. SpaceX leases computing capacity to customers including Google and Anthropic, Quartz reported. The company is also developing the Cochise Supercomputer Campus in Arizona, which Baxtel reported is planned to reach 6GW, and two Southaven, Mississippi sites that Baxtel reported will add about 420,000 GPUs to its Colossus 2 complex.
Baxtel tracks 74 data centers in South Texas operated by 30 providers, and records SpaceX's Starbase site as planned and under construction.
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