Fort Worth City Council has approved a revised site plan for Black Mountain’s planned $10 billion data center campus in southeast Fort Worth, allowing the project to move forward after months of delays and neighborhood opposition.
The council voted 7-4 on Tuesday, August 25, to approve an amended plan covering 187 acres of the project, KERA reported in a story first published by Fort Worth Report. The approval applies to land near Lon Stephenson Road, Forest Hill Drive and Anglin Drive, where Black Mountain has been seeking to develop a large data center campus.
The approved plan adds an electrical substation, permits data center buildings up to 70 feet tall and includes four buildings totaling just over 1 million square feet of ground coverage, according to Bisnow’s report on the council action. The earlier concept had called for 18 buildings and roughly 3 million square feet.
Revised design reduces site coverage
The revised plan is significant for developers and site selectors because it shows how local governments are pushing large data center applicants to adjust physical layouts, buffering and site infrastructure before approving projects near residential areas.
According to the city’s legislative file for zoning case ZC-26-041, the applicant sought to amend planned development district PD1420 to add an electrical substation, increase maximum building height to 70 feet, increase the maximum building setback to 150 feet and allow data center parking at one space per four employees, with a site plan included.
During the council process, the setback language was amended further. KERA reported that council members Michael Crain and Chris Nettles requested language reflecting a 300-foot distance between homes and the data center. Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett told council members the buildings in the revised plan were already more than 300 feet from homes, according to the same report.
Bisnow reported that increasing the building height allowed the developer to reduce the land used for the campus by 50%, citing a presentation to council. The result is a more compact layout with additional green space and separation from nearby residences, while still preserving the core data center use.
Local scrutiny remains high
The approval does not end the policy debate in Fort Worth. The city is simultaneously working through broader data center rules as residents and council members weigh concerns over power demand, water use, noise, environmental effects, tax base impacts and the proximity of large digital infrastructure projects to neighborhoods.
Fort Worth has already acknowledged the growing scale of the sector locally. On its data centers information page, the city says it has four data center developments across 10 individual buildings in Council Districts 5 and 10, with a combined footprint of more than 3 million square feet. The city also says Council adopted a resolution on August 11 initiating the legal process for a moratorium on new data center development applications while it completes a regulatory framework.
That broader process matters for operators and developers across North Texas because Fort Worth is becoming a test case for how fast-growing power-intensive campuses are being handled at the municipal level. The Black Mountain vote shows that projects already in the pipeline may be evaluated differently from future applications, especially if zoning or site-plan review has already advanced.
Implications for North Texas data center development
The Fort Worth decision comes as data center development across North Texas faces closer public and regulatory attention. For the industry, the case underscores the need to bring utility infrastructure, building height, setbacks, landscaping, traffic, cooling strategy and community engagement into the entitlement process earlier, not after opposition has hardened.
For utilities and infrastructure planners, the addition of a substation to the approved site plan highlights the scale of electrical planning now embedded in hyperscale and large campus projects. For local governments, the case illustrates the tension between potential investment and tax base expansion on one side and neighborhood compatibility, resource use and long-term grid impacts on the other.
Black Mountain’s project can now proceed under the approved amended site plan, but Fort Worth’s forthcoming data center regulations may shape how future campuses are reviewed, conditioned or delayed in one of the country’s most active development markets.
