Bryan City Council approves tax break to rescue $298 million RELLIS Campus data center
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Bryan City Council voted unanimously to approve a replacement tax abatement agreement for the RELLIS Campus Data and Research Center, a move aimed at rescuing a nearly finished, $298 million facility after its original developer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A new owner is now stepping in to take over the project, which had been billed as the biggest economic development in Brazos County history before a series of delays and headlines rattled the community.
Bryan Mayor Bobby Gutierrez pushed back on concerns that the deal would burden residents financially.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there about this," Gutierrez said. "There's not anything that's going to cost the taxpayers anything."
Gutierrez explained that the agreement defers taxes rather than eliminating them.
"This is something that defers some taxes for a while. This makes it where they don't have to pay all of the taxes up front. But at the end of it—after the end of the period, it's usually an eight to 10 year period—they pay full taxes," Gutierrez said.
Not everyone is satisfied with the terms. Local resident Rafael Pena called on the city to build stronger protections for local vendors into the contract, citing the lessons of the original developer's bankruptcy.
"I think since we had that experience of a bankruptcy, maybe you put some language, some clawback provisions, some benchmarks, performance-based measures where, uh, maybe if it happens again, we make sure that the subcontractors and whoever has a piece of it who did work on it aren't left in the cold," Pena said.
Local resident Robert Rose raised concerns about the potential impact on utility costs for residents already stretched thin.
"A lot of people are living month to month. And so if their utility bill goes up $20 a month, that could be a big deal for a lot of people locally," Rose said.
Despite those concerns, Pena said the project could still deliver real benefits to Bryan if the right safeguards are in place.
"For the most part, as long as, you know, we're taken care of and how we get taken care of is, you know, performance-based measures, benchmarks, and clawback provisions in case something goes awry—I think then this deal could be, you know, a good thing for Bryan," Pena said.
Under the replacement agreement, the new ownership group faces a strict deadline of this September to restart construction.
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