AI Next Door: What Abilene learned living by Stargate, and what Effingham Co. could see

by Steven Glover

ABILENE, Texas (WTOC) - Before Effingham County decides the future of Project Camellia, WTOC traveled to Abilene, Texas, to see what it’s like living next to an AI data center.

Welcome to Abilene

Eight miles outside a city of more than 131,000 people sits Stargate — an 875-acre AI data center campus.

Abilene is known for its western heritage, roots in the buffalo hide trade, and as the Storybook Capital of America. It is now the epicenter of America’s AI buildout.

Since construction ramped up in 2023, between 7,000 and 9,000 temporary workers moved in to build the massive facility around the clock.

“It takes a lot of people, because they were working 24/7 to build these buildings,” said Scott Senter, Better Homes and Gardens realtor.

Residents say the influx overwhelmed a city that was already growing.

“We were already seeing a lot of growth but not like what we have now with the data centers,” said Abilene resident Kaelin Winters.

Traffic now stretches all day, residents said. Fatal crashes are up about 30% in Taylor County due to increased traffic, according to Abilene Mayor Weldon Hurt.

Rents doubled and in some cases tripled residents say. Housing inventory fell to about 350 homes on the market, hotels filled with workers, and dozens of RV parks sprouted in and around Abilene.

“The rent for people has gone up three times the amount, the housing market has gone up, there are no houses to rent,” said Abilene resident Debbie Alexander.

Mayor Hurt acknowledged the city could have done some things differently.

“So were there things we could have done different? Of course there were,” Hurt said.

Living in Stargate’s shadow

A single dirt road and a line of mesquite trees separate Melissa Caton’s farm from Stargate.

“What’s to our right is Stargate. And to the left is my husband’s and I little farm,” Caton said. “They are my neighbors, yes.”

Caton said construction equipment damaged nearby roads, including Shirley Road and Sphinx Road, and enforcement never kept up.

“It operates most of the time unchecked. Like, it’s not really policed,” Caton said.

She said work is around the clock. Crews can be heard dropping materials, and alarms sound during bad weather.

“We can literally hear if they drop stuff. When we have adverse weather, we hear all of their alarms,” Caton said.

At night, floodlights and blue flashing lights keep the property lit.

“If you walk out on our back porch, our trees look like it’s snowcap because they’re white from the light. It’s never dark at our house anymore,” Caton said.

Caton said the scale was never fully vetted with neighbors, and the private road her family maintains is now used by the development.

She also feels the town-wide squeeze. Caton, who works for a local university, said recruitment fell from a typical class of 40 to 12 because 600-square-foot apartments now rent for $2,600 a month.

“You can get a cheaper apartment in New York City than you can get in Abilene, Texas,” Caton said.

Caton said she is not arguing whether AI facilities should exist, but that they need separation from homes, farms and schools.

“They need to have a safety barrier around them, a proximity, a separation between them and agricultural communities, neighborhoods, schools,” Caton said.

Rent, Roads, and RV lots

At Lucy’s Big Burgers on Abilene’s south side, Debbie and Beth Alexander said life got harder on the roads and on the wallet.

“Hotel prices have gone through the roof. Yes, it brings in a lot of money, for the people working there. However, for everybody that works someplace else, they are not getting pay raises to match,” Beth Alexander said.

Waitress Gretchen Spoon said she lived the housing squeeze.

“I had just left my apartment back in June, and my rent was at $980 and had been the entire time I was there. Well the moment I left, the rent immediately went up to like $1,300. And I’m like, how are people going to afford this?” Spoon said.

Senter said some $1,200-a-month rentals began bringing in $3,000 as short-term rentals for workers, pricing out college students and local workers.

“We had 800 or so properties available; it was a healthy 3-4 month supply,” Senter said. “But with only 350 houses on the market, and 300 houses built a year by the local builders,” inventory vanished.

The city’s fast answer was massive RV lots. Senter said many parks overbuilt and are now not filling all spaces.

“So we’ve got probably, I think three, four or five different new RV parks. And I’m like, what are you going to do with all of these when these people leave?” Caton said.

The boom behind the build

While the influx brought higher rent and traffic, city leaders and businesses describe another side — more spending and more jobs.

“A lot of pros, a lot of people making money, a lot of money. More money than Abilene has ever brought in,” Debbie Alexander said.

“It does create a whole lot of jobs, a lot of locals are definitely working with the data center,” Spoon said.

Hurt said most Abilene businesses are benefiting.

“You talk to restaurants, you know, restaurants that cater to these facilities, you know, I mean, they’re banking right now. They’re doing great,” Hurt said.

The city’s 2025 financial report shows sales tax up nearly $17 million in one year, up 40%, most of it tied to AI data center construction. Hotel taxes alone rose $2 million, the city says, driven by construction workers and lodging demand.

Hurt said one local bus operator grew from 16 drivers to 62 drivers carrying workers, and data center operators added bus routes and worker housing to ease traffic.

With Stargate and the Shackelford County site together, Hurt estimates about 15,000 temporary workers. He said violent crime has trended down over the last three years.

Longtime businesses have been pulled into the work. Mackie Crossan, a construction owner, said his company benefited since Stargate.

“From my end of it, I’m probably a little more blessed than a lot,” Croassan said. “Business wise, financial wise, they’re really good. I think it’s helping our economy, it’s growing.”

Hurt calls the disruption the price of progress.

“It’s the price of progress. No one likes a big construction project,” Hurt said.

He points to fixes already permitted — single-family home permits up 73% and about 900 apartment units expected within a year.

“We have a shortage of housing. And so, yes, we’ve had inflated rents,” Hurt said. “Just the availability to the housing will help.”

He is betting on what remains after construction.

“What I look at is five, seven, ten years down the road is the permanent jobs that are going to be created by these facilities. They’re going to be residents moving to Abilene with good paying jobs. They’re going to be homebuyers,” Hurt said.

Abilene vs. Effingham: Same AI, different deal

One campus is already running. The other is still an open field.

In Abilene, Stargate sits outside the city. Project Camellia is planned on 1,440 acres inside the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, much closer to homes and a school. Stargate was developed by Crusoe with cloud capacity from Oracle. OpenAI is the customer there.

Camellia would be designed as a 1,440-acre campus, owned and operated by OpenAI itself, with four buildings at 720,000 square feet each and Georgia Power delivery in phases from 2028 to 2032.

Water drew the hardest questions in both towns. Stargate uses a closed-loop system that fills once and recirculates water, much like a car radiator.

“Once it’s charged, we’ll only use a few thousand gallons of water annually because it doesn’t evaporate. It doesn’t go anywhere,” Hurt said. He said eight buildings hold 8 million gallons combined, compared to 25 million gallons a day used by Abilene for residents and wholesale customers.

Lancium CEO Michael McNamara put it this way during a stop in Abilene: the city uses about 16,000 gallons per minute, while the entire data center site with 8,000 workers was using about 10 gallons a minute.

In Effingham, the county says Camellia would follow the same closed-loop model, at around 30,000 gallons a day from treated surface water only, with no groundwater use.

Power is where they split. In Abilene, Stargate pulls from the Texas ERCOT grid like other customers and must reduce intake when demand spikes, Hurt said. He said many newer Texas campuses are adding on-site natural gas generation in a gas-rich region.

“So they’re not water hogs. They require a lot of power, but they are on the grid,” Hurt said.

Camellia is planned differently, with offsite power generation and no diesel backup generators after completion, up to 3,210 megawatts at peak from Georgia Power, according to OpenAI and county officials. The county says state rules mean Camellia pays its own power costs.

On environment, Hurt said Abilene has seen no impacts so far. In Effingham, protections are still under review. The county says the plan calls for at least a 300-foot vegetative buffer, setbacks beyond what is required, a noise study before operation and noise monitors on the fence line after it opens.

Jobs follow the same pattern — temporary workers first, long-term jobs later. Camellia is projected to bring thousands in construction, then 400 long-term tech jobs.

The biggest divide is what each community was offered.

In Effingham, OpenAI started with an $80 million community fund, including $4.8 million for free breakfast and lunch for all students for the 2026-27 school year and a $2 million grant announced Oct. 22 for trails at Atlas Park on Highway 80. OpenAI is also tied to a 30% homeowner tax cut this year, with the county projecting $27 million a year for the county and $39 million for schools at full buildout.

Abilene was never offered that upfront, Hurt said.

“We should have asked for those big asks up front and we didn’t, and I encourage other people who are getting data centers to do that,” Hurt said.

While Project Camellia is still in the works, those who live with Stargate have a message on what to expect once an AI data center is up and operational.

“Residents need to get to vote for it. You know, whether they want it or not. But, everybody needs to understand it,” said Debbie Alexander, Abilene resident.

“Have a real good handle on your surrounding areas and have the possibility of having empty apartment houses, former prisons, whatever it is that you can house somebody in because it’s going to come on you,” said Scott Senter, Better Homes and Gardens realtor.

“And embrace the opportunities; don’t look for the negatives. Because there’s usually going to be some sunshine there if they’re bringing jobs and they’re bringing infrastructure, and they’re bringing some attention to your community,” Senter added.

“I think it’s beneficial for everybody. Each county and each state is different. If they get on board and help out then it’s a great atmosphere. If they buck the system, then the detriments out of it, I couldn’t tell ya, because we’ve been on board with everything,” said Mackie Crossan, construction owner.

From a dirt road in Abilene to an open field in Effingham, Abilene shows what it costs. Effingham will decide what it’s worth.