According to multiple reports, 87 acres of land that a Texas farmer gifted for $10 in 1999 so neighborhood children would have a safe place to play and run around was sold to a data center developer for $10 million. The land was reportedly deeded to the City of Taylor, Texas, on the condition that it be used for a public park. However, reports state the land “changed hands several times” and was sold to data center developer Blueprint in 2025. The land is now reportedly being cleared for a 135,000-square-foot data center. In 1999, descendants of a farmer in Taylor, Texas, donated nearly 88 acres of land to the Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation for a nominal $10. The deed clearly specified that the property was to be held in trust for future use as parkland by Williamson County. The donation… pic.twitter.com/CBCe4PiWZX — Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 9, 2026 More from The Economic Times: According to an investigation by 404 Media from the original deed from July 7, 1999, it was clear that the 87.97 acres in Taylor, Texas, were “held in trust for future use as parkland.” That deed is still on record. But in a series of transfers that eventually spanned nearly three decades, the land was eventually sold by the Taylor Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) to data center developer Blueprint for $10 million in 2025. The story of how parkland becomes a data center is really the story of how legal language is quietly worked around, one transaction at a time. In 1999, Bland and his family sold the land to the Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation for $10, with the understanding that it would be used as a park. That foundation transferred the land to the Williamson County Park Foundation in 2003, which then transferred it to the City of Taylor in the same year. In 2008, the city sold it to the TEDC for $15,000. Then, in 2025, the TEDC sold it to Blueprint for $10 million, a stunning jump from what was supposed to be a permanent gift to the community. For longtime resident Pamela Griffin, who grew up playing on that land and saw her own children do the same, the news of the data center plan in 2025 was a gut punch. At first she didn’t know what a data center was. She looked it up with her family and was immediately alarmed and the fact that it would sit just 500 feet from her front door made it personal in an impossible-to-ignore way. Griffin told 404 Media that her family has lived on the land since her grandmother. “My dad and mom weren’t invited in the city limits. So they had to make their own community. So when they make their own community, now you want to come in and you want to snatch it from us again?” Griffin told the outlet. “I think he (Bland) wanted to make something right for this community, so he gave his land. I never thought in a million years that a judge wouldn’t go our way because I always thought deeds in Texas stand. When people give something, it stands,” Griffin continued. “It’s a cycle of doing us wrong. You want to take our community that we built because you want to make money? 500 feet behind everybody’s back door. Imagine our water bill going up, electric bill going up, when they know this stuff harms people. They know it. But they don’t care,” she added. Watch below: Gizmodo shared further: When news of the sale broke, locals were initially concerned for the usual reasons one might have when learning that a 135,000-square-foot facility—the sort now known to wreak havoc on small towns—is being built next door without their approval or input. But thanks to the sharp memory of Pamela Griffin, a City of Taylor resident who grew up playing in a lot next to the contested land, data center opponents were clued in to the deed’s park clause and the legal leverage that might afford their fight. Griffin recounted a childhood memory of a conversation between her father and Mr. Bland to 404. “I’m thinking about giving this land for parkland because these kids need somewhere to play,” she recalled Bland saying. When activists knocked on Griffin’s door last year and alerted her to Blueprint’s plans to erect the data center in her town with a population of just 16,267, she brought the park stipulation to their attention. Following that lead and sifting through public records, the center’s opposition found documents that corroborated Griffin’s memory and revealed the land’s curious ownership history. The City of Taylor offers only a few sentences of vague assurances on its website to “address concerns” of those worried about the air, noise, light, and other potentially harmful emissions the proposed center might put out. They also say it’s pretty much a done deal and, even if they wanted to, there’s no reversing course on this project. “Can the City just say no to data centers?” asks one FAQ question. “In short, no.” The city’s executive director of community services, Daniel Seguin, told 404 that Blueprint can just use the property for the center without city approval “because the property’s existing Employment Center zoning already allowed such a use.” He also claimed that the center would bring $30 million in tax revenue to the city over the next decade. Griffin doesn’t buy this argument. She feels that, regardless of the changing of hands that occurred, the deed is pretty clear about what can be built on that land. “I keep trying to tell everybody,” Griffin explained, “if they start messing with deeds in Texas? Allowing deeds to be not upheld? What’s going to happen to all of us?” “The proposed Blueprint Projects Data Center is 135,000 square foot data center which will house servers (computers) used for a variety of purposes including data storage, website hosting, Artificial Intelligence processing, and more. The project is planned in three phases with a total investment of $1 billion,” the City of Taylor stated. “The proposed location for the project is on the south east side of town, just inside Carlos G Parker Boulevard between Martin Luther King Boulevard and the railroad tracks. The facility is expected to feature three buildings, an electricity substation to power it, backup power generators, and a closed-loop cooling system,” it continued. “Blueprint projects recently purchased the land from the Taylor EDC for $10 million. They have also received economic development incentives detailed below,” it added. Read more on the city’s website. Watch additional coverage on the data center development below: