Last summer the city of Bryan, Brazos County, Bryan ISD, and Texas A&M — each entity under a non-disclosure agreement — approved tax abatements for a mysterious $10 billion investment on Texas A&M’s RELLIS campus.
“I think it’s the biggest thing to come to Brazos County since A&M was put here. If this winds up happening,” Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp said at the time. “There’ll be about 1,800, at least, permanent jobs here. Much more than that obviously in the construction phase. And it’s a minimum $10 billion investment.”
“This is a game-changing project for Bryan,” Mayor Bobby Gutierrez said. “We’re doing everything we can to get it here. The economic benefits and job creation potential are enormous.”
The Texas A&M RELLIS campus in Bryan is the potential home to a semiconductor facility, according to documents filed with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
Through documents it was revealed that the proposed facility would produce semiconductors. James Proud, CEO of San Francisco-based Substrate Inc, the parent company of America’s Foundry Bryan, LLC., was listed as the head of the project. Documents from the Texas Comptroller’s Office said the facility is to be constructed on a 288-acre reinvestment zone at the RELLIS campus with construction to be completed by 2029.
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So far, not a single shovelful of dirt has been turned on the project and no one is talking about it, presumably because of the NDAs. Attempts to reach Sharp and Proud for comment for this story were unsuccessful by press time.
An economic impact analysis report of the proposed project shows a total capital investment of over $108 billion over the next 40 years. The company also hopes to employ 1,800 workers by 2035.
America’s Foundry Bryan, LLC also has filed for an unknown amount of state and federal funds from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Texas Enterprise Zone Project Designation, the Texas Skills Development Fund, and the United States CHIPS Incentive Program.
“This will double the taxable value of Bryan,” Sharp told Brazos County commissioners at a July meeting.
The Brazos County Commissioners Court passed a $10 billion tax abatement agreement at its Tuesday meeting at the Brazos County Administration Building.
At the same meeting where he urged the commissioners to adopt the tax abatements, he touted the significance of the project.
“This will have a tremendous impact on the nation. It’s not just about Bryan and it’s not just about Brazos County,” he said.
Per the agreements, the abatement percentage will be 80% for the first five years, dropping to 50% for the remaining five. The guaranteed value of the tax abatement begins at $100 million and increases to $10 billion by the seventh year.
The project is operating under the name America’s Foundry Bryan, LLC/Project Factory One. It is reportedly the first of its kind in the United States. It will focus on cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing.
Texas won out in a nationwide site selection process that began with proposals from 12 states and was later narrowed to Texas, Oregon and New York.
Sharp credited multiple people for their work on the project during his comments to the Bryan City Council. He noted that David Staack, who has served as interim director of A&M’s Semiconductor Institute, has taken over the project. Sharp said Susan Davenport, president and CEO of the Brazos Valley Economic Development Corporation, “is an absolute wizard.”
An economic impact analysis shows tax revenues during the construction period are more than $463 million for the state, over $46 million for the city of Bryan, and more than $15 million for Brazos County.
According to online records, the 3 million-square-foot Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Facility will include administrative buildings, central utility buildings, infrastructure, a machine shop, receiving and warehousing facilities, as well as site and roadway infrastructure.
A first tie-in?
Although there is no known connection with the America’s Foundry Bryan project, earlier this month Brazos County commissioners approved a five-year, 50% tax abatement for Honeywell International’s $120 million facility in Bryan that will produce ultra-high purity hydrofluoric acid for use in production of semiconductors.
The city of Bryan earlier approved a similar abatement for Honeywell after creating a reinvestment zone for the company’s 25-acre location on Mumford Road last August.
According to the tax abatement agreement with the county, the Honeywell Electronic Chemical facility “will be the first United States facility to produce semiconductor grade hydrofluoric acid.”
The abatement begins Jan. 1. The estimated property value in 2025 is $45.9 million. The incremental taxable value of the property will rise to $74.1 million in 2026 and then go to $120 million after that. The new facility is expected to employ 10 to 12 people with an annual payroll of $909,000.
According to the city of Bryan, the facility will generate an estimated $748,000 in property tax after the abatement ends.
The man with the plan
Proud, a 32-year-old wunderkind born in London, is best known for his work with tech startups Hello and Config. According to online records, Hello built sleep tracking software, but shut down in 2017 when it couldn’t find a buyer. Config builds software to manage the process of hardware development.
In 2011, Proud was selected as one of the first 25 people to be awarded a Thiel Fellowship – a scholarship program started by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel that gives teenage entrepreneurs $100,000 on the condition they skip college. Proud was considered for the scholarship when he created a ticket-selling website GigLocator at age 17.
