Princeton Says It Isn’t Supplying Data Center Water, but Project Appears in City Plans

By R.J. Morales | TX3DNews

PRINCETON, Texas – Months after questions about possible data-center development first surfaced in Princeton, the issue returned Monday during a City Council discussion of the city’s latest water and wastewater infrastructure plans.

This time, the questions involve a proposed data center outside Princeton city limits and why the project is being accounted for in the city’s long-term infrastructure planning.

The property is in Princeton’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ, where the city’s role in development is more limited than it is within the city limits.

Mayor says city won’t provide water

During public comments, Ken Seligman, a candidate for Princeton City Council Place 6, questioned why the data center appears in the city’s infrastructure plans.

Seligman pointed to a roughly $7 million project in the plans that calls for 400,000 gallons of water per day.

Mayor Eugene Escobar Jr. said Princeton has not been asked to provide water to the site and said he believed it was going through another water provider.

“We don’t have anything that’s requesting us to service this,” Escobar said. “We’re not providing any data center water. It’s in the plan.”

The data center is in Princeton’s ETJ, outside the city limits. Escobar said the plan was developed before the city changed its data-center regulations.

Todd questions what council was told

In an email to TX3DNews, Councilmember Cristina Todd said two properties have been discussed for possible data centers. One is inside Princeton, while the other is the ETJ property discussed Monday.

“There were two properties with data centers in mind,” Todd said. The property inside the city has not moved forward, she said.

In May, Escobar said in a public Facebook post that there were “no data centers currently planned or under consideration within the City of Princeton.”

Todd said council had also been told Princeton would not supply water to the ETJ project.

“Staff told us that we can’t supply water to them, so we will not be helping,” Todd wrote. “The mayor has said it over and over. But those plans say otherwise.”

Todd also questioned when council members received the information.

“But they had that info and sat on it,” she wrote. “We were kept in the dark.”

Why the concern hasn’t gone away

Sumbel Zeb, an elected member of the Collin Central Appraisal District Board of Directors who is running for Princeton City Council Place 6, pointed to concerns that go beyond Monday’s meeting.

“We’ve been hearing rumors about a Data Center for a while now,” Zeb said.

Zeb also pointed to concerns about water costs and what data-center development could mean for longtime property owners.

“We have people here in Princeton or in the ETJ who have owned property for a long time and they’re afraid they’re going to lose that or lose the value of their property,” she said.

The city’s infrastructure plans added another element to the debate.

“And then yes, it being in the plans I think set off alarm bells for some,” Zeb said.

She also acknowledged the mayor’s position.

“There’s residents who are convinced that the city council is somehow planning on supporting a Data Center which is going to be outside city limits,” Zeb said. “The Mayor denied that last night, but the belief persists.”

What the plans mean remains unclear

The data-center discussion came during a broader look at how Princeton’s water and wastewater systems will handle future growth.

Later in the meeting, Todd returned to that issue while discussing another development, questioning whether the city’s infrastructure and existing standards could handle the additional demand.

For now, Escobar’s position on the ETJ data center is clear: Princeton is not providing water to the project.

What remains unclear is why the data center and its projected water demand are included in Princeton’s infrastructure plans.

The city has been asked to clarify what the project shown in the plans represents and whether Princeton expects to build or fund any infrastructure connected to it.