Microsoft is dropping another massive data center just outside Castroville, adding a one-story, roughly 195,670-square-foot colocation facility at 3580 FM 471 North. The project carries an estimated price tag of about $400 million and is slated to wrap up in July 2028.
Those details appear in a state project registration and were first pulled together by the San Antonio Express-News, which reports that the filing spells out the site, size, and timeline. The outlet also notes that Microsoft now controls roughly 1,451 acres in Medina County and more than 300 acres in Bexar County, and that the new site is planned as a colocation facility, meaning Microsoft will rent space to other companies. The filing cites an entry with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for the project.
Part of a rapid regional build‑out
The FM 471 project is only one piece of a much larger buildout west and south of San Antonio. MySanAntonio reported earlier filings for two single-story buildings at 2995 U.S. 90 W, a combined roughly 489,400 square feet, along with a separate $482 million data center project at 18844 FM 1957. Industry watchers have also flagged additional Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation submissions for new builds along County Road 381.
DatacenterDynamics highlighted the SAT-89 and SAT-90 filings tied to the 2995 U.S. 90 W campus, a sign that Microsoft is quietly stitching together a sizable data center network around Castroville and the western edge of San Antonio.
Utilities, water and local concerns
Local officials and utility planners say all this steel and concrete comes with real infrastructure strings attached. CPS Energy is moving ahead with roughly $1.3 billion in transmission and generation upgrades to handle rapidly growing data center power loads, while county residents are asking pointed questions about water use and road wear tied to heavy construction traffic.
The San Antonio Express-News and other local outlets have documented both CPS Energy's upgrade plans and community concerns over the industry's water footprint in the Hill Country, where sprawling server farms are a very different kind of neighbor than pastureland and small subdivisions.
What this means for Castroville and beyond
For Castroville and nearby San Antonio, the new FM 471 colocation site likely translates into a multiyear burst of construction work and added capacity for cloud customers, but relatively few long-term onsite jobs once the servers are humming and the lights are on.
Industry coverage has consistently found that data center construction can provide a solid, if temporary, boost for local contractors and trades, while the finished facilities run lean, with limited permanent staffing. Even so, Texas has emerged as one of the country's biggest data center job markets overall, thanks to the scale of projects scattered across the state. Axios San Antonio has tracked those employment trends alongside Microsoft's recent waves of filings.
Next steps will play out in state permitting calendars and local filings, where residents and regulators can watch for new milestones, including water agreements and CPS upgrade details. MySanAntonio has been following both the paperwork and local reaction, and state TDLR records are expected to fill in more of the fine print as each project inches closer to breaking ground.
