The company that operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has completed the $8.5 million purchase of more than 1,000 acres of city-owned Northeast El Paso land for a proposed huge data center.
Meta Platforms Inc., under a company it established to buy the land, completed the sale on Dec. 29. That’s 3½ months earlier than the sale contract’s April 18 deadline for moving forward with the sale without a contract extension.
The land sale agreement was approved by the El Paso City Council on Dec. 4, but city officials did not announce its completion.
The City Council and El Paso Commissioners Court on Dec. 4 also approved providing millions of dollars in tax rebates to Meta over 25 years to encourage it to spend a minimum of $800 million to build a hyperscale data center.
Meta officials have yet to publicly announce the company will build a data center at the vacant El Paso site. However, the land sale is a big step toward proceeding with the project. It has up to five years to develop the property, according to the sale contract.
The vacant land is located along a little-used portion of Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue and just off of U.S. Highway 54 — not far from the New Mexico state line.
Data centers house computers and servers to process data for customers. Hyperscale data centers are large and can quickly scale up or down to meet demand. However, the centers don’t have large workforces.
The land sale was contingent on Meta obtaining a water-supply agreement with El Paso Water, which it did in early December. It waived a contract requirement that it also have a power-purchase agreement with El Paso Electric prior to the sale closing.
Meta and EPE are still negotiating a power agreement, Kelly Tomblin, the utility’s chief executive officer, recently told the El Paso Times.
The Meta-tied company, Wurldwide LLC, entered an agreement with the city and paid a deposit of $333,600 on April 18, 2022, to inspect the land for up to a year, with possible extensions. Meta instead completed the land sale on Dec. 29, a city spokesperson said.
CBRE, a global commercial real estate firm, did an appraisal in April 2023 of the 1,042-acre site for the city and concluded the site’s market value was $8,156 per acre. It based that value on evaluating sales of five El Paso-area vacant land sites, which sold for prices ranging from $6,550 to $16,929 per acre, the CBRE appraisal report shows.
The city sold 1,039 acres of the site for $8,156 per acre, or just under $8.5 million, and retained three acres. City staff handled the land deal without using an outside broker, said Karina Brasgalla, interim director of the city Economic and International Development Department.
The money from the sale goes into the city’s capital assets fund for future capital-asset purchases as required by city charter, Brasgalla said.
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Meta has to build at least an $800 million data center and invest at least $2.8 billion over 25 years, including costs of periodically updating the center’s equipment, to get $110 million in mostly tax rebates and other incentives, a city official reported in December.
However, if it builds a five-phase campus, as city officials are hoping, and spends at least $14 billion, including equipment refreshes every five years, it could get more than $500 million in tax rebates over 25 years, city information shows.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter, now known as X.
Five years ago, when a real estate agent advised my wife and me to make an offer on a house we had seen only once − at night − and were unsure about, I thought she was being ridiculous. Today, I concede that she was being pragmatic because buyers significantly outnumbered sellers.
We bought another home before it was listed, happening to spot the “Coming Soon” sign out front. That was my preview of the housing shortage. Then COVID-19 supercharged the national housing crisis.
You may know the rule of thumb not to spend more than 30% of your income on housing. Redfin calculated that only 15.5% of homes bought last year would have a mortgage costing less than 30% of local median income, a record well below the pre-pandemic norm.
A new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that in 2022, a record half of U.S. renters were “cost burdened,” spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. About 27% of renter households spent more than half of their income on housing.
The root cause of this financial hardship is a shortage of homes, although some housing advocates question or deny that reality. But the housing shortage is a literal shortage. We can see it from various pieces of evidence.
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Housing price index is at near record high
America built far fewer homes in recent years. U.S. private home construction crashed before the 2008 mortgage crisis (measured in total units). Only in late 2021 did it climb back up to its pre-Great Recession peak.
Homebuilding is rebounding, but we have a lot of catching up to do. The Case-Shiller housing price index sits near an all-time high.
The median age of first-time homebuyers also is near a record high, at 35.
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Investment firms have owned many multifamily buildings for decades. They now are buying a significant number of houses because they expect a continued shortage to boost those properties’ values.
Economists argue about inflation and minimum wage laws, but they overwhelmingly agree we have a housing shortage. “Place the Blame Where It Belongs,” declared a recent Urban Institute report on the shortage. Economists are still figuring out how to measure it, but various estimates place the national shortage of homes in a broad range, from 4 million to 20 million.
Rising rents trigger increase in people without stable housing
It was a moment, not a number, that finally convinced me of the housing shortage. I started an all-volunteer housing advocacy group in 2021 and about a year later was invited to tour a homeless shelter. A staff member explained that rising rents had increased the local population without stable housing, and that the shelter struggled to find available homes to place its clients in.
I have since heard the same thing from staff at other shelters in my state. I have also heard chilling stories about residents of my city living in unsafe, overcrowded conditions.
Low supply lets landlords jack up rents. It prevents people from leaving abusive partners. It forces California college students to sleep in their cars.
The housing shortage is all too real. Only building many more homes will make housing affordable again.
Luca Gattoni-Celli is a Young Voices contributor and the founder of YIMBYs of Northern Virginia. Follow him on X @TheGattoniCelli
A new community in Surprise will sprout 795 homes with prices starting in the high $300,000s.
Meritage Homes’ 227-acre development called Paloma Creek will also have the biggest amenity center it has built so far, with a pool, an outdoor kitchen, a playground, a fire pit, a basketball court and fitness and community centers.
Located near West Happy Valley Road and 163rd Avenue, the community’s houses will range in size from about 1,200 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet. Prices range from $380,000 to about $450,000.
Homes are under construction and models are open in Paloma Creek. Sales started last month.
The median home price in Surprise is $445,000, according to Realtor.com. Metro Phoenix’s median price is $430,000.
“Paloma Creek offers homebuyers well-appointed, energy-efficient homes at an affordable price,” said Jamie McAndrew, vice president of sales for Meritage in Phoenix. “We look forward to welcoming buyers to the community and helping them achieve their goal of homeownership.”
The houses will include spray-foam insulation, Low-E windows, air infiltration systems and ENERGY STAR-certified appliances.
New homes are drawing more Valley homebuyer attention because of the short supply of existing houses. Also, many home builders offer mortgage-rate buydowns for buyers.
Reach the reporter at catherine.reagor@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8040. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @CatherineReagor.
WELLS, Maine — A developer has revised his plans to build new homes on wooded land at 502 Post Road.
Arnie J. Martel, of AJM Construction, said he is now hoping to build 165 single-family townhouses on 121 acres.
In his original application, Martel said he sought to build more than 100 new homes and as many as 40 new townhouses on 44 acres at the site. Martel withdrew that application, which the Wells Planning Board was set to receive on March 4.
Martel confirmed he submitted a new application, which corrects or clarifies some of the details in the original and slightly reconfigures the layout.
“We just made non-substantial changes,” Martel said.
In an email, town engineer Michael Livingston confirmed that the Planning Board is scheduled to receive the new subdivision pre-application at its next meeting on March 18. Livingston also said the board will likely schedule a site visit at the property.
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Erik Poulin of Jones & Beach Engineers of New Hampshire is the project manager for the site and is representing Martel.
Martel said he is buying 114 of the 120 acres from Richard Jorgensen, who owns an antique shop at the location. He said he is purchasing the final six acres from The Morrison Center. The properties fall within the town’s general business, 75-foot shoreland overlay, and rural districts.
Martel said he is proposing the construction of three buildings with six townhouses each, with the remaining 147 townhouses as standalone structures. The lone townhouses will be approximately 1,600 square feet, he added.Martel said the new community would be “private and self-contained.”
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Residents have discussed Martel’s development plans on social media. On the “Wells, Maine” Facebook page, one post generated a lengthy discussion in which people expressed concerns regarding zoning, taxes, traffic, housing, quality of life, the potential impact on schools, the rate of development in the community, and other topics.
Martel said his project is not likely to impact or overwhelm local schools, as, in his experience, the people who buy townhouses don’t typically have young children. Families with children tend to seek out larger living spaces, he said.
“Usually, there aren’t a lot of kids in townhouse subdivisions,” Martel said. “People are looking for simpler living.”