On September 17, 2026, the Temple City Council approved a group of items related to Rowan's current and proposed data-center development. These included an infrastructure agreement and separate utility-service agreements for three project areas. This briefing summarizes the City of Temple's published recap; it is not a substitute for the signed agreements or future operating data.
What the infrastructure agreement says
According to the City, the agreement calls for Rowan to fund $38,545,796 in infrastructure and community contributions. The City's breakdown is approximately $25 million for ten South Temple water-infrastructure projects, $10 million for an Aquifer Storage and Recovery project, and $3 million for a community center. Approval establishes obligations; it does not mean every project has been built or every dollar has already been paid.
Rowan's announcement describes its $3 million community-center contribution in connection with voter approval of a November bond. That condition deserves checking against the final agreement and the election result before anyone describes the contribution as unconditional.
What the water agreements address
The City says each of the three utility-service agreements includes water and wastewater capacity limits, advanced metering, staged water use, infrastructure requirements, and enforcement mechanisms. Closed-loop cooling is required. The City says exceeding a limit cannot simply be resolved by paying a fee; the agreements allow limiting devices to restrict use.
The City's estimated average daily water use after operation is 13,800 gallons for Phase 1, 8,200 for Phase 2, and 10,100 for Phase 3—32,100 gallons per day combined. These are estimates, not measured consumption. The City also says initial filling of the closed-loop systems must be staged and coordinated, which means startup demand and steady-state averages should not be conflated.
Questions worth tracking
- What are the exact limits, deadlines, and payment milestones in the executed agreements?
- Will the City publish metered use by project and explain any material difference from the estimates?
- How will startup filling, expansion, and drought conditions be reported separately from average daily operation?
- Which of the ten South Temple projects are complete, and which costs remain public obligations?
- How does the November bond result affect the community-center contribution?
Those are practical governance questions, not arguments for or against the projects. Public trust improves when a forecast is followed by a measured result and a clear explanation of any gap.
Primary sources and scope
This briefing uses the City's September 17 council recap, its utility-service agreement explainer, and Rowan's September 17 announcement. The City and Rowan are parties to the project, so their published numbers should be treated as official statements and commitments, not independent verification of future performance. For the cooling basics, see How Data Centers Use Water.