Out in the Wieland community, Core Scientific has been asking the owners along nearby county roads to give up right-of-way so the roads can be widened for construction traffic. Most have declined. Hunt County Commissioner Garry Smith told the Herald-Banner that landowners have shown limited interest in granting it, so the company is looking at building a private road instead.
In the same report, Smith said the heavy truck traffic would likely last eight to nine months, depending on weather. Trucks were hauling dirt for deep foundation work at the time. Precast structures and a crane were expected near the end of December, and flatbed equipment deliveries around April. Neighbors have complained about truck speeds on FM 1564 and County Road 2101. The contractor waters the roads each morning to keep the dust down, and Core Scientific plans to pay for a road overlay to get through the winter. A separate Herald-Banner report said trucks enter from FM 1564 by way of CR 3507, and that the county and the company were working on a company-funded improvement agreement for CR 3507 and CR 3508.
For a neighbor, a data center up close means a request for a strip of frontage and many more trucks on the road into town. The bigger lesson for anyone weighing acreage in unincorporated Hunt County is how this campus ended up here at all. The deciding factor was the grid, and no public map showed it.
The corner was chosen for what already ran past it
eExtra News traced the site in detail. Telios PC, a Dallas engineering and construction firm, is the registered owner of 263.778 acres in the Wieland community, spread across an area bounded by County Roads 3506, 3507 and 3508 and FM 1564. Of that, 231.538 acres were a family farm Telios bought in February 2023. It bought another 32.24 acres from a different owner the same month.
eExtra also reported why the location appealed. Farmers Electric Cooperative serves Wieland and has a power distribution facility on CR 3505, with transmission lines running along CR 3508. There's a solar farm next door, a power station and battery storage facility across the road, and few houses nearby. Telios had also designed a new 100,000-square-foot headquarters at the FEC campus in Greenville in 2023.
The land was first bought with a solar farm in mind. According to eExtra's town hall coverage, Telios approached Core Scientific about a data center in late 2025. So pasture became a solar plan, and the solar plan became an AI campus, all because of power infrastructure that had been sitting along a county road for years.
How it moved, in order
- February 2023: Telios buys the Wieland acreage.
- Late 2025: Telios brings the site to Core Scientific as a data center.
- March 4, 2026: Core Scientific announces a 285-megawatt campus designed for about 430 MW of gross power capacity.
- March 24, 2026: Telios and Core Scientific present to the Hunt County Commissioners Court. They say the data center itself would take about 70 acres, that they would not seek tax incentives, and that they had consulted Cash SUD for water and FEC for power.
- May 5, 2026: According to its quarterly filing, Core Scientific acquires the Hunt County land for about $233 million and signs an electric service agreement expected to support about 430 MW.
- May 2026: The company holds a town hall in the Lone Oak High School cafeteria.
- July 28, 2026: Core Scientific's second-quarter investor presentation lists Hunt County as a direct site for AMD with about 110 MW of leased power and initial delivery estimated for the first half of 2028.
None of those steps was a county approval of the site. The court heard a presentation after the announcement had already gone out, and its later dealings with the company have been about roads, like the CR 3507 and CR 3508 improvement agreement.
Why the county found out from a press release
Commissioner Smith said it plainly in a public post that eExtra News republished: "Core Scientific has not contacted anyone in the County prior to or since the release." He also wrote that a company had asked the previous summer whether county right-of-way could be used for data centers and had been told it could not be used for private purposes.
The reason comes down to how Texas splits land-use power. The Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center explains that Texas counties have limited land-use authority and no general zoning power, though they keep platting and some specific regulatory powers. Cities once had a tool for land just outside their limits, but that has weakened too. Senate Bill 2038 took effect September 1, 2023, and lets landowners petition or vote to release qualifying land from a city's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Greenville City Council member Ben Collins described the local result in the same eExtra piece: "There is essentially nothing that the county government can do about this." He added that the project sits outside city limits, so the city has almost no influence either.
Large data centers do get reviewed, at the grid level. Senate Bill 6, passed in 2025, directs the Public Utility Commission to set interconnection standards for large loads, with the threshold set at 75 MW unless the commission finds a lower one necessary. That review is about how the load connects to the grid. It doesn't consider whose back fence the campus sits behind.
What the county has asked Austin for, and what it would reach
Hunt County's response has been to ask the Legislature for authority it doesn't have. On June 9, 2026, the Commissioners Court passed a resolution supporting a proposed new Chapter 237 of the Local Government Code. It would give counties narrow, temporary authority to pause certain high-impact development, data centers included, in unincorporated areas. The resolution also repeated the court's May 2026 petition asking the state for statewide data center standards.
In October the court went further. A resolution filed October 13, 2026 supports a proposed "Covered Facility Location, Setback, and Buffer Act" for the 90th Legislature. It opens with this:
"distance is the single most effective mitigation for the sound, light, and fire exposure created by the massed buildings, mechanical equipment, battery banks, generator arrays, and fuel storage of a high-impact facility, and it is the one measure a county presently has no authority to require"
As described in the resolution, the proposal would cap setbacks at 500 feet from a property line and 1,000 feet from an existing home. A neighbor could waive the protection by recorded instrument. The rule would apply only to projects not yet filed or begun. For now it's a proposal endorsed by a county. Even if it passes, it would not reach the Wieland campus, which is already underway.
What this means when you're looking at a tract
Under these rules, what happens next door depends on what the land can attract, and nobody has to approve it. In Wieland, that came down to things anyone can see from the road: transmission lines along CR 3508, a co-op distribution facility on CR 3505, a solar array and battery storage across the road, and large parcels in one owner's hands.
When we walk acreage in the unincorporated parts of the county with buyers, these are the things we look at:
- Lines along the frontage road. Transmission lines along a county road can make the surrounding land attractive to large power users.
- Substations and distribution facilities nearby. FEC's facility on CR 3505 was one of the reasons eExtra gave for the Wieland site.
- Existing solar or battery sites. Wieland was planned as a solar farm before it became a data center.
- Big neighboring parcels held by outside companies. The Telios land was bought in 2023 and sat quietly until the 2026 announcement.
- The road itself. A narrow county road with private land on both sides is where a builder will come asking for right-of-way, as Wieland owners found out.
Wieland may not stay the only site. In March, Smith wrote that the county development office had received a request to discuss a second data center north of Quinlan and south of Boles Home.
This post is general information about public rules and local reporting, not legal, tax or financial advice. If a right-of-way request, a deed or a neighboring use affects your property, check the specifics with a real estate attorney or the right professional.
A few quick answers
Will the campus raise nearby electric bills? At the Lone Oak town hall, Core Scientific said it would pay 100% of its energy costs and didn't expect any increase for residents, according to eExtra News. SB 6 separately requires cost recovery for large-load interconnections.
How much water will it use? The company said less than 6,750 gallons a day, using a closed-loop cooling system with a propylene glycol fluid.
What about light and noise? The company described shielded, downward-aimed LED lighting, LiDAR scanners for security in place of floodlights, baffles around the cooling fan towers, and rows of pole trees as sound buffers.
Which taxing entities benefit? eExtra reported that the general tax revenue goes to Hunt County, not a city, and that most of the school property tax would go to Lone Oak ISD. The site is nowhere near Quinlan's city limits.
When will it be running? Core Scientific's July 28, 2026 investor presentation estimates initial delivery at the Hunt County site in the first half of 2028.
If you own land near Wieland or are thinking about buying acreage anywhere in unincorporated Hunt County, we're glad to drive the roads with you and look at what runs past a tract before you commit. Texas Homes & Land works these county roads every week. Let's Make It Happen.
