SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas (KLTV) – The Texas Attorney General’s Office has joined a legal battle surrounding a new Data Center in Sulphur Springs.
The City is suing the former landowner, Vistra Companies and Luminant Mining, while they counter-sue. The Land was once a mine.
According to filings, the Vistra Companies gifted the city the land in 2019 as the company worked through bankruptcy filings.
However, the deed to the land included what the City is calling a “deceptive” provision.
The provision provides that ” Purchaser covenants that the Property will not be used for the commercial production, commercial generation or commercial storage of electricity in any form.”
The Data Center would require massive power generation and storage, estimated at 3,000 Megawatts. Developers will generate and store that electricity on-site.
“It was a deceptive thing,” said Sulphur Springs City Attorney Nate Smith.
Smith said they offered Vistra an opportunity to build the power facilities for the data center, but they declined.
Vistra sent a cease and desist to the city on September 30. The City has argued that Vistra’s current rights to the land are limited
“They were saying, to the railroad commission and anyone that would listen, that they had no rights on the land, and that they wanted to support the city’s highest and best use of the land,” said Smith. “When the truth was, they were lying in wait until the project was profitable so they could demand a ransom.”
In their suit, Vistra argues the City has broken their terms.
“A deal is a deal,” it reads. “Contrary to the City’s misleading allegations, this dispute is governed by the parties’ recorded instruments—not by the City’s after-the-fact dissatisfaction with a bargained-for, conspicuous, and recorded land-use covenant it accepted in 2019.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office has filed a brief in support of the city. Their brief says that Luminant has included this deed in numerous other properties across the state, arguing it can create an energy monopoly.
Copyright 2025 KLTV. All rights reserved.
