El Paso businessman Stanley Jobe’s concrete supply company outbid El Paso Electric for 592 acres of vacant Northeast El Paso land being sold by El Paso Water.
Jobe Materials, a large El Paso supplier of concrete, aggregates, and other construction materials founded by Stanley Jobe, had the winning bid of $8.15 million for the land along Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue, just west of Facebook’s operator Meta Platforms data center complex under construction.
The El Paso Water Public Service Board approved Jobe’s bid for the land at its June 10 meeting. The sale agreement includes restrictions on the property, including barring high-load data centers, like the Meta data center, from the land. It also does not allow high-water-consuming industries, a category that some large data centers have been classified.
El Paso City Council must approve the proposed sale before it can become final.
Jobe plans to use the land for a sand-and-gravel quarry, Alejandro Vidales, the water utility’s land and water rights manager, told the PSB. The company has an existing quarry west of the El Paso Water land, he said.
Stanley Jobe did not immediately respond to requests to answer questions about the pending land purchase.
El Paso Electric, which plans to build a power plant next to the Meta data center to help meet its electricity needs, bid $6.8 million for the property. The company owns 36 acres in the general area where the El Paso Water land is located, El Paso Central Appraisal online records show.
The sale agreement also prohibits the property from having utility-scale solar plants or battery energy storage systems, which El Paso Electric operates in New Mexico.
The PSB’s minimum required bid for the property was $5.92 million, based on the appraised value, Vidales said.
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Prior to the PSB’s unanimous vote to approve the land sale, El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson, a PSB member, reemphasized that the land can’t be used for a data center.
City Hall and city-owned El Paso Water have been under attack by some El Pasoans, including a neighborhood coalition, to void, or at least change agreements with Meta that grant it huge tax breaks and the right to use large amounts of water if needed.
In December 2023, the City Council and El Paso Commissioners Court approved providing multiple millions of dollars in tax rebates to Meta for building the data center complex through economic development agreements with the company, and the PSB approved a contract to supply water to the Meta facility.
Veronica Carbajal, an environmental lawyer and organizer of the Sembrando Esperanza Coalition of nine historic El Paso neighborhoods, reminded the PSB at its June 10 meeting that members of her group had come before the board each month since January asking it to reconsider the utility’s water-supply contract with Meta.
“Just yesterday (June 9), they (Meta) sent out a letter to everyone (El Paso City Council and others) that says we’re going to use zero water; absolutely wonderful. Then why do we have a contract with the water company that guarantees them up to 1.5 million gallons a day,” Carbajal asked. “So, if they don’t need 1.5 million gallons a day, let’s redo the contract, and make it a zero water contract. Why not?”
Meta’s June 9 letter stated the El Paso data center complex “will use zero water for a majority of the year.” It also stated that the complex’s annual water consumption is projected to be lower than that of typical golf courses in the Southwestern U.S. The letter did not specify the number of gallons of water per year that would be used.
No one on the PSB or with El Paso Water commented on Carbajal’s request.
Most of the undisclosed profit from the pending land sale to Jobe will go into El Paso Water’s Land Sales Restricted Reserve Fund, used to help pay for future water supply projects. Five percent of the profit will go into City Hall coffers.
The reserve fund had $4.5 million prior to the completion of the pending Jobe transaction. It had $26 million in March 2024, but has been reduced due to spending on water projects.
Vic Kolenc may be reached a915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on X, and @vkolenc.bsky.social on Bluesky
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Stanley Jobe’s firm outbids EP Electric for 592 acres of city land
Reporting by Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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By Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times | USA TODAY Network
