PowerHouse's 300MW Circle T campus and DFW data center hiring

PowerHouse filed the plans through Kimley-Horn, and DatacenterDynamics and Baxtel reported them in August 2026.

• ●Developer: PowerHouse Data Centers, part of American Real Estate Partners
• ●Site: about 88 acres at 13580 Denton Highway in Westlake, Texas
• ●Size: up to four buildings of 300,000 sq ft each, 300MW in total
• ●Power: a 350MW Oncor substation that PowerHouse paid to bring to Westlake, which will also serve the town's pump station
• ●Approvals: the first building is allowed under the existing zoning, and each later building needs a specific use permit
• ●Not announced yet: the construction schedule, job numbers and the tenant

PowerHouse has not published a schedule. Campuses like this hire in a set order, and each search should be open before the milestone it depends on.

• ●Owner's team and design: owner's project managers and electrical and mechanical design leads, before design starts
• ●Power: substation, switchgear and utility engineers, lined up with the Oncor substation work
• ●Construction: superintendents, MEP coordinators and managers, project controls and BIM/VDC coordinators, hired by the general contractor before it starts on site
• ●Commissioning: the commissioning agent first, during design, then commissioning engineers, controls engineers and startup technicians before Level 3 testing
• ●Operations: chief engineers, critical facilities engineers and critical environment technicians during construction, so they watch Level 4 and Level 5 testing before they take over

With up to four buildings, construction, commissioning and operations hiring will repeat for each building. That makes Circle T a source of demand for the same skills in north DFW for several years.

PowerHouse told Westlake officials it has 11 active and planned Texas projects totaling 10GW. They include a 201MW building in Irving that topped out in March 2026 and a 768-acre campus with Provident Data Centers in Ellis County.

South of Dallas, DataBank is building a 480MW, eight-building campus in Red Oak. Its first building was expected online in August 2026, and the first three buildings, 180MW, are leased to an AI company. That puts Red Oak's operations hiring in the market now.

A candidate in Ellis County is unlikely to want a daily drive to Westlake.

• ●Compare your commissioning and testing dates with Circle T's likely hiring, and line up your commissioning people early if they overlap.
• ●Search by drive time to your site. Northwest Fort Worth, Denton County and Tarrant County are the closest pool for Westlake.
• ●Consider people from utilities, industrial controls and large-plant maintenance, with a planned first 90 days of training.
• ●Check your pay range against current DFW data center pay before you post the role.

• ●Commissioning, controls and critical facilities skills will be in demand in north DFW for several years.
• ●Ask any employer when the site will be energized. The answer tells you how long the job will match its description.