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Data centers in Wharton County, Texas: 1 project mapped
Amazon Web Services is building a data center campus in unincorporated Wharton County, just outside Boling, a town of fewer than 400 people about 55 miles southwest of Houston. The project, known as Project Eagle, sits on nearly 3,000 acres off FM 442 near FM 1301. Amazon bought the land in March 2026 and has been moving dirt under a conditional development permit from the county. The first public trace was four filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation listing Amazon Data Services as owner, each for a building of about 189,000 square feet costing an estimated $300 million. A site plan later reviewed by the Houston Chronicle showed 10 data center buildings of that size, each roughly the footprint of a Walmart Supercenter, plus three smaller buildings. The total investment is put at $10 billion. Minutes from a January 2026 special session of the Commissioners Court said the project would bring 4,000 to 7,000 construction jobs, and Amazon has promised 300 permanent jobs, 150 of them by the end of 2027.
How much power the campus will draw has not been disclosed. Amazon and CenterPoint, the utility serving the site, both declined to say. Amazon confirmed it is in ERCOT's new review process for large loads, which applies only to projects needing at least 75 megawatts at peak, and said it would curtail its load or run on backup power during grid emergencies and pay for electrical upgrades. On water, Amazon says the first buildings will be air-cooled and it will not use groundwater for cooling, a live issue in a county where many rural households are on wells. At a meeting in Boling on September 10, 2026, Keith Klein, Amazon's director of supply solutions for the Americas, put domestic water use at about 16,000 gallons a day. But the Lower Colorado River Authority told the Chronicle that Amazon expects to use about 500 acre-feet of untreated river water a year as the site grows, roughly 163 million gallons, when it may use surface water to cool during the hottest hours.
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The objection in Boling is as much about how the project arrived as what it is. Wharton County Judge Philip Spenrath signed a sweeping non-disclosure agreement with VisionFirst Advisors, a consulting firm that has worked with Amazon, restricting what the county can disclose about design, finances and output. Spenrath did not respond to the Chronicle's requests for comment. Houses across the highway from the construction site carry red signs reading "You can live without data, but you can't live without water." "We don't have any zoning, so all of that adds to a ripe place for a corporation like Amazon to exploit," said David Rodriguez, a goat farmer who lives about six miles away in Lane City. Writing for Texas Southern University's Bullard Center in May, Wharton County native Bertina Carter said residents learned at an April 28 community meeting that land approvals had come before there was broad public awareness, and that neighbors were already reporting constant generator noise and bright lighting through the night. At the September meeting residents raised construction noise, dust and flooding. Others backed the project. "The tax money will definitely help both the school district and Wharton County, period," said Boling resident Pete Kucera.
Texas counties have little power over land use. Spenrath wrote in June that the county cannot broadly stop a landowner from building, but that it was negotiating a binding agreement requiring Amazon to avoid groundwater for cooling and to protect roads, drainage and emergency services. That agreement is what to watch. As of August, County Attorney Trey Maffet told the Chronicle nothing had been finalized. "There won't be an agreement unless they provide significant commitments to protect that community from sound, air, visual and light pollution," he said, along with steps on flooding and groundwater. More county permits are still needed. Wharton County is one of nearly 250 data center projects planned across Texas, and the backlash has reached Austin. Gov. Greg Abbott has directed two state agencies to audit proposed projects.
Data center projects on record in Wharton County
Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.
Boling1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Project Eagle (Boling)Boling | Amazon Web Services | Under construction | Not reported |
Where this comes from
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.