⭐ Morning Briefing — September 9, 2026

(Latest updates through September 9, 2026)

Top Story: White Rose Partners withdrew its $580 million Project Tomahawk data center from Prosper after a week of mounting opposition, closing the town's most-watched zoning fight the same day Galaxy Digital disclosed 4.2 GW of newly classified Texas data-center capacity and Lubbock's City Council voted to hold off on large-scale data centers of its own.

📰 Today's News

1. 🏳️ Prosper's Project Tomahawk Is Dead — Developer Withdraws Before the Council Vote

White Rose Partners withdrew its application for Project Tomahawk ahead of the Sept. 8 Prosper Town Council meeting where the project was scheduled for a final vote, according to a town news release reported by Community Impact. The application is now officially closed, and the Town Council will not consider it.
The withdrawal follows the Prosper Planning and Zoning Commission's unanimous 7-0 recommendation of denial on Sept. 1, after more than an hour of public opposition at that meeting, including from Prosper Mayor David Bristol, who cited a lack of clear state and local guidelines for data centers.
"We don't want to go into communities where we're not wanted," said Jeff Eigenbrood, a managing partner at White Rose Partners, per Community Impact.
The application had sought to rezone 37.3 acres at Parvin Road and FM 1385 — chosen for its proximity to a Brazos Electric Power Cooperative substation — from agricultural use to a 225,000-square-foot data center. A community group, Prosper Residents for Responsible Land Use, gathered more than 2,000 signatures opposing the project ahead of the council meeting.

Today's Signal: This is the cleanest "concrete outcome" this briefing has tracked in weeks — not a delay, not a tabled vote, but an application withdrawn and officially closed — and it lands the same day two other North Texas communities took their own stands, suggesting organized local opposition is starting to win outright rather than just slow things down.

2. ⚡ Galaxy Digital Discloses 4.2 GW of Newly Classified Texas Data-Center Capacity

Galaxy Digital announced that five of its Texas data center projects received conditional ERCOT Batch Zero large-load classifications covering roughly 4.2 GW of gross power capacity, according to the company's Sept. 8 release via PR Newswire, corroborated by StreetInsider and Stock Titan.
Helios I (800 MW) and Helios II (830 MW) at Galaxy's Helios campus are classified as Batch Zero Base Load — capacity approved back in January 2026, part of more than 1.6 GW already cleared at the site, with Helios II still on schedule to energize in 2028.
Caspian (700 MW), Selene (900 MW) and a third Helios expansion (1,000 MW) are conditionally classified as Batch Zero Studied Load, meaning they remain subject to capacity allocation in ERCOT's ongoing system-wide study.
Galaxy's total Texas data-center pipeline now exceeds 5.7 GW across four sites, including a new 500 MW campus, Merlin, in McGregor. The classifications follow the PUC's Aug. 20 good-cause exception allowing ERCOT to issue conditional classifications while its audit — expected to take several months — continues.

Today's Signal: One day after IREN's Sweetwater hub became the first individual project this briefing saw win a public Batch Zero call, Galaxy's disclosure is roughly double the size — a sign the classification process is now moving in bulk rather than one project at a time, with the real test still ahead once ERCOT's multi-month audit actually concludes.

3. 🗳️ Lubbock City Council Votes to Hold Off on Large-Scale Data Centers

Lubbock City Council unanimously passed a non-binding resolution declaring the city's intent not to allow large-scale data center development within city limits until the council approves its own regulations, according to KCBD and EverythingLubbock/KLBK.
The vote follows a citizen-led petition seeking an 18-month moratorium on high-energy, high-water-use data center development, which was validated and moved to the council after being announced in late August, per the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Lubbock is not currently considering any specific data-center proposal — city officials framed the resolution as a preemptive statement of intent rather than a response to a live project.

Today's Signal: Lubbock joins Fort Worth, which took its own first step toward a moratorium in August, as another Texas city choosing to write the rules before a developer shows up rather than after — the same "write the rules first" argument Prosper's mayor made this week, just adopted preemptively instead of in the middle of a fight.

4. 🦖 Hood County Postpones Comanche Circle Decision to October 13, as NRG Drops the Gas Plant That Would Have Powered It

Hood County Commissioners Court met Sept. 8 to discuss and potentially act on several proposed data-center developments, including the closely watched Comanche Circle project, but voted after public comment to move the item to Oct. 13 to allow time for proper public-hearing advertising, according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
Comanche Circle, backed by Florida-based Sailfish Investors, could eventually span 2,100 to 2,600 acres near Tolar and the Paluxy River, with as many as nine data-center campuses.
Separately, NRG Energy withdrew its air-permit application for the proposed Tolar Power Center, a 1,200-megawatt gas plant that would have supplied electricity to Comanche Circle, after opponents submitted thousands of comments urging regulators to deny it.
The postponement follows an earlier ruling this summer by a district judge against developers who had argued two Hood County data-center projects should have been automatically approved under a 30-day deadline rule; the judge found that rule applies to subdivision plats, not standalone commercial concept plans.

Today's Signal: A month's delay isn't a denial, but pairing it with NRG's withdrawal of the power plant Comanche Circle was counting on shows the project's two biggest pieces — the data centers and the generation to run them — are both stalled at the same time, not just one or the other.

📍 Today's Watch List

Actionable Signals for Wednesday, September 9

Whether Hood County Commissioners take up Comanche Circle again at the Oct. 13 meeting, and whether the added advertising time changes the outcome.
Whether other North Texas cities follow Lubbock's and Fort Worth's lead with their own preemptive hold-off resolutions, including Denton's still-pending Sept. 22 hearings.
Whether Galaxy's three Studied Load projects (Caspian, Selene, the third Helios expansion) get confirmed as ERCOT's system-wide study proceeds over the coming months.
Whether Granbury's City Council schedules an actual recall election for the five named officials, still pending since the city agreed in late August to advance the petitions.
Whether the Westlake/Keller TRO hearing — delayed from its original Sept. 8 date — gets a new date on the calendar.
ERCOT's December 10 audit-completion deadline — no material movement expected before the December PUC meeting, so this item stays deprioritized on the watch list until that date approaches.