Project Jupiter, described in an August 2026 Albuquerque Journal article as a 1,400 acre data center under construction in Santa Teresa, changed what owners ask a contractor in southern Dona Ana County. The questions are no longer only about buildings. They are about how many megawatts reach the fence, where the water comes from, how the heat leaves, and whether the site can be graded, drained and fenced on a schedule that matches a utility interconnection.
We build for data center owners and operators on that basis. The halls and support buildings matter, but the first decisions are civil and electrical: a flat, well-drained pad in an arid basin, a duct bank that carries medium-voltage feeders without conflicts, and a construction sequence that lets the electrical room be energized before the first rack is delivered. Our data center construction work is organized around those handoffs.
Buyers here are mostly developers, hyperscale operators and the engineering firms who work for them. They want a contractor who can price early with incomplete information, say plainly what is unknown and hold a commissioning date once it is set. We write our scopes that way.
A campus of this type breaks into four packages. Site work covers clearing, mass grading, stormwater detention and perimeter security. Utilities cover the power duct banks, fiber paths, domestic water and fire water. Buildings cover the data halls, the electrical and mechanical yards and the people spaces. Commissioning covers everything that proves the systems carry load.
We separate these packages in the budget so the owner can see where cost moves. The underground electrical duct bank package is the one most often underestimated: concrete-encased conduit banks with manholes, many bends and a congested corridor take more time than the surface work. Supporting buildings such as security gatehouses, warehouses for spares and operations offices fall under data center support buildings, and we pair them with the main hall schedule so they are not an afterthought.
Power infrastructure drives the budget more than the shell does. Switchgear, transformers, generators and the batteries or other systems that bridge outages carry long lead times and large price swings. We carry those items as owner-directed or as contractor-purchased with an agreed escalation method, whichever the owner prefers, and we flag any selection that locks a lead time into the critical path.
Site conditions are the second driver. Santa Teresa sits at roughly 3,937 feet elevation in a dry basin, so grading, caliche and drainage are real cost lines, and so is dust control during earthwork. Cooling approach is the third: air-cooled, evaporative and liquid cooling each shift money among mechanical equipment, water supply and roof or yard structure. We price two or three cooling options at the start so the owner chooses with numbers.
Summer highs in the Las Cruces area average 96.2 degrees F in June, and open sites in the Santa Teresa basin run hotter on the ground. Our site plans include shaded rest areas, scheduled water breaks, and earlier start times in summer for concrete placement, steel erection and roofing. Concrete in hot weather needs retarders, cooled mix water or evening pours, and we plan them in advance.
The other major hazard is energized equipment. As the electrical rooms come online, the site changes from a construction zone to a facility with live gear, and we adopt lockout procedures, arc flash labeling and escorted access before that transition. The same rules apply to the utilities and power projects we support, where interconnection testing overlaps with construction.
New Mexico's 2020 Electrical Code adopts the 2020 National Electrical Code as amended and took effect March 28, 2023, and the 2021 Commercial Energy Conservation Code adopts the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code, effective January 30, 2024. Both apply to data halls and the mechanical systems that serve them. We reconcile the energy code with the owner's power usage targets early, because some efficiency measures are required rather than optional.
The location also affects jurisdiction. Santa Teresa is unincorporated, while Sunland Park's revised Rancho Santa Teresa annexation proposal covers approximately 362 acres, so the boundary between county and city review can change for adjacent parcels. Our Santa Teresa and Sunland Park experience helps us find out early who reviews what.
Three questions shape the first six months: how many phases the campus will have, what is built in each, and which infrastructure serves all of them. Over-building the first phase wastes capital, and under-sizing shared infrastructure creates a shutdown later. We help owners draw a line between shared trunk systems and phase-specific branches.
Many data center owners also need construction for the people and materials around the campus, from truck staging to equipment storage. Our data center building type page describes the shell options, and the staging and laydown needs overlap with the logistics work we do in the logistics and distribution sector.
Send the megawatt target, the parcel and the interconnection date. We will return a sequence, a package structure and the questions that decide the first budget.
The utility interconnection timeline, the cooling approach and the site boundary should be at least stated, even if not final. Without them, a budget is a range with little meaning. We can start preconstruction with incomplete information, but we mark each assumption so the owner knows which ones change cost.
It makes every gallon a design decision. Fire water, domestic water and any evaporative cooling all draw on supply that must be secured, stored and metered. We design fire water storage and loops as a separate package, and we price cooling options by their water demand so the owner sees the tradeoff.
Utility interconnection and long-lead electrical gear depend on it, and it sits underground where later work would damage it. Placing the duct banks early also lets the utility pull feeders on its own schedule. A late duct bank can hold up energization by months.
Yes, if the phase has its own approved site plan and utilities do not depend on the unreviewed parcel. With the Sunland Park annexation of about 362 acres still being proposed in the area, we check jurisdiction for each parcel before committing a layout.
It involves tested load banks, failover tests, controls verification and documentation for each system. We schedule these tests as a separate activity with owner and equipment vendor staff present, and we reserve time for retesting after corrections.