Real Estate Photographer in Jarrell, TX

JARRELL, Texas (KXAN) — Walmart plans to build a store in Jarrell, a city that has recently attracted significant investment interest.

The location of the potential Walmart would be on southeast corner of the Hugh Smith Lane and FB Schwertner Road intersection, and it would become the first major grocery store in the city.

In a Oct. 14 Jarrell City Council meeting, a Walmart representative said the project would be a $70,000,000 investment, and at the opening of the store they would have more than 300 associates.

“When we see these big types of retailers come into a community like this, it often spurs additional growth,” said Matt Patton, Executive Vice President of Angelou Economics. “Retailer operators understand that they’re going to drive traffic to these spaces so they can open up their own, retail operations with a certain degree of confidence that it’s going to, positively benefit them as well.”

Patton drew comparisons to how Walmart built a store in Castroville, a suburban city to San Antonio.

“That has spurred growth where we’re starting to see [stores] like Ulta and Burlington following suit,” Patton said. “It’s very plausible for us to see that entire I-35 corridor from Waco to Austin filling in.”

“I’m not a fanatic about Walmart — I’m more neutral. What I do is I go all the way to HEB in Georgetown and get my food, ” said Sandra Gutierrez, who lives in Jarrell. “If I want to invest in Jarrell, I do try to visit local shops, local groceries.”

“It’s already a traffic nightmare, and to add Walmart in there with the heavy trucks and the everyday traffic is not conducive to our city, said Rusty Bryson, another resident in Jarrell. “One of the things we strive to do in Jarrell is to keep the hometown feel.”

“I am pro for Walmart to come in because of the just the mass jobs that they’ll have. And speaking to them, they’ve been very open to child pedestrian traffic and they’ve been open to all the ideas,” said Jarrell Place Five Alderman Daniel Islas.

“When you get a big project like Walmart, it’s going to attract a lot of other businesses in the area, so we’re expecting that growth to happen pretty quickly,” said Jarrell Mayor Patrick Sherek. “On the city side, we just want to make sure that we have the resources, to allow that growth to happen when it comes to water and wastewater.”

In a statement to KXAN, Walmart said:

We are grateful for the positive progress at [October 14th’s] Jarrell City Council meeting, and we look forward to continuing conversations as we look to bring a Walmart Supercenter of the future to Jarrell and help local residents save time and money and live better.

In the council meeting, an agenda item passed to voluntarily annex a 0.548-acre tract of land that the Walmart would be built on into Jarrell, officially bringing it under city jurisdiction. Other items on the agenda related to the Walmart, such as zoning changes, development agreements and release of right-of-way were tabled for a future meeting.

JARRELL, Texas (KXAN) ? A developer can now build a data center with land that was rezoned after the city of Jarrell passed agenda items related to the center.

The approved items determined that the 151-acre plot of land would be annexed into the city, and could be designated for the data center by rezoning it for light industrial use and a business park.

This comes after the Jarrell Planning and Zoning Commission in August recommended the approval of the data center on land located next to Jarrell High School, as shown by Williamson County documents.

Jarrell Mayor Patrick Sherek said that although he was at first optimistic at the possibility of the city housing a new data center, his feelings towards the project have grown more mixed over time.

“The development would bring substantial property tax revenue to the city and to the school district,” he said. “When I ran to be mayor, I always wanted to give back to the community. [But] then we had some opposition from some concerned residents, and they have some valid concerns.”

Although the center would bring in significant amounts of tax revenue for the city, Sherek said the chosen location and strain on natural resources have him concerned, a sentiment shared by other Jarrell residents.

He said the data center, if built, would double the city’s annual budget, allowing Jarrell to repair its roadways and attract more businesses to its downtown area.

Jarrell Place Five Alderman Daniel Islas said that while he is not too keen on having construction underway next to where his children go to school, he believes it may be in the city’s best interest to approve the rezoning plan anyway.

Annexing the site, he said, would give Jarrell more input in how the facility operates. If Jarrell chooses not to annex the land, the facility could still be built following the approval of Williamson County. If that were to happen, Jarrell would not see any of the generated tax revenue flow back into the city.

“There’s been a lot of people saying that they don’t want it at all, but unfortunately, as a city council member, you have to just inform them that either we bring them in and have a say or they have a potential of building it anyways and doing it any way that they want,” Islas said.

Jarrell resident John Simpson said he believes the construction would not only add significant noise pollution to the area, but also put more stress on the local electrical grid and water supply.

“We’re already on one day a week watering restrictions, even now. So that’s not going to get better if they’re using water,” Simpson said.

Fellow resident Sandra Gutierrez said one of her main concerns with the project is its location.

She believes placing the facility, which she referred to as a “modern day factory,” may cause issues for students at the neighboring Jarrell High School, which two of her children will one day attend.

“If my kids are going to be at a school for eight hours a day, day in and day out, they’re going to be the ones exposed to all that,” she said.

Gutierrez added the project has been moving at too fast of a pace and believes the developers have not properly consulted members of the community.

KXAN reached out to the developers behind the proposed data center but has not heard back. This story will be updated should they respond.

Local residents have voiced opposition to a data center project in Jarell, Texas, ahead of a vote by the city council.

According to reporting by the Austin Business Journal, at a Q&A workshop convened by the City Council on September 23, members of the public expressed concerns that included the data center’s potential impact on water and electrical infrastructure, the suitability of its location, and the overall lack of information about the project.

This will weigh over the City of Jarrell City Council’s next meeting on October 14, where the council will consider whether to approve the rezoning of an approximately 150-acre land parcel at 3911 County Road 305 from ‘Neighborhoods’ to ‘Business Park’ for the so-called Mesone Data Center.

The vote on the proposal, which will be preceded by a public hearing, is recommended for approval by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission following a vote in August.

The applicants are listed as Prominent Property Group, land developer and construction manager Savannah Developers, and infrastructure project manager Power Infrastructure Partners. No information about the facility’s end-user is available.

Principal at Prominent Property Group Dalton Little previously stated that the facility would have access to 200MW of power at completion, which would be generated using natural gas and grid power.

Jarell, a city located north of Austin, is in Williamson County. Data center operators Colovore and Blueprint Projects also have a presence in the region, with the latter's project in Taylor recently receiving approval.

According to a report by Synergy Research Group in August of this year, Austin was one of the top 20 global colocation markets by revenue. The city is one of Texas’ largest data center hotspots, along with Dallas Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Hamilton.