The Fort Worth City Council is scheduled to take final rezoning votes on a proposed $10 billion data center campus on June 23, 2026. Developed by Black Mountain, the project has drawn organized neighborhood opposition on the city’s southeast side near Forest Hill and Everman.
Unlike recent large-scale developments that bypassed local municipal oversight, the Black Mountain project requires explicit city council approval to alter its targeted site. The upcoming vote follows an unexpected delay on May 12, when city leaders tabled the decision less than three hours before the council meeting.
Black Mountain is asking to rezone roughly 431 acres of land. If the pending requests pass, Fort Worth will clear a total of about 500 acres for the technology campus. For scale, this footprint is significantly larger than Meta’s existing 170-acre data center site in north Fort Worth.
Plans for the campus include four buildings totaling 2.2 million square feet, with structures standing up to 68 feet tall. An Oncor Electric Delivery Company substation will sit at the center of the property to deliver power exclusively to the facility.
To address immediate neighbor concerns, the Fort Worth Zoning Commission voted unanimously on April 8 to recommend approval after adding mandatory property setbacks from adjacent single-family homes and capping the maximum building height.
A related corporate entity, Fort Worth Power Core LLC—which shares Black Mountain’s corporate address and chief executive—has also filed applications with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The filings seek regulatory approval to operate on-site natural gas power plants to supply electricity directly to the project.
Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett stated that the project will generate approximately $30 million a year in tax revenue for the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. Bennett also noted that the development will create hundreds of full-time operational jobs with average salaries exceeding $75,000.
Fort Worth Zoning Commissioner Tammy Pierce supported the project during commission hearings, characterizing the expansion of AI and 5G data centers as a necessary part of municipal progress.
Local residents and environmental groups have expressed opposition to the project’s scale and environmental footprint. Environmental advocate Jaime Perkins said that the massive size of the facility will create noise and issues for the surrounding Fort Worth community.
Neighboring property owner Sue Weston said that developers initially approached local landowners as an oil and gas company without disclosing the true scope of the project.
The final decision on the Black Mountain project now depends on whether the Fort Worth City Council approves the zoning change and whether they impose any further restrictions on the property.