There are two massive microchip factories currently under construction between Dallas and Oklahoma – one by Texas Instruments, another by the Taiwanese company Global Wafers. Although the factories aren’t up and running yet, they’ve already helped transform the area around them.
Developers have rushed to take advantage of the flood of new people coming to the area, according to Michael Mooney. He spent several weeks reporting in Sherman for D Magazine, and he spoke to the Texas Standard about the land rush.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How much is the area around Sherman poised to grow, population-wise?
Michael Mooney: The population in that area is probably going to double in the next decade or so. So it’s going to grow an enormous amount.
Give us some examples of the development that’s already taking place and what’s coming up.
Well, so right now, most of Grayson County, where Sherman is, is ranchland and farmland. But that is transforming very quickly.
A couple of big developers have already put together plots of 3,000 and 4,000 acres with the idea of transforming that area to big neighborhoods, suburbs – you know, commerce, a couple of of apartment complexes and thousands and thousands of houses.
Who’s making money off the Sherman land rush so far?
So far, a couple of people. The people who have been paid to build roads and pipelines probably have made the most so far. But developers like Ross Perot Jr. and land people like Rex Glendenning are really poised to make an enormous amount in the next couple of years.
Very interesting. Do some folks feel like they’re getting left out or pushed out, even?
Yeah, quite possibly. On the slightly less wealthy side of Sherman, there are a lot of people on fixed incomes. There are a lot of people who are not going to be able to afford the cost of living as it goes up.
And so there are definitely – as there are new roads and new developments and new houses and a lot of people moving in, making new incomes – some of the people who have been there for generations are not going to be able to afford to stay there.
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Now, we’ve seen some of that in other parts of the country. Are there other potential pains that come with this growth that local leaders are concerned about?
I think right now, local leaders are mostly just incredibly excited by the potential for this amount of money and this amount of development, this tax revenue that’s going to be coming into the community relatively soon.
I think most of the leaders there are really afraid of the potential downfalls. You know, I think they’re mostly afraid of the possibility of some of this money disappearing or some of this investment halting before it’s really fully matured.
I think, you know, they’re going to have some big city problems; crime is probably going to go up a little bit. They’re worried about the state of education in the area. If you’re going to attract families from all over the country, you’re going to want stellar schools. And I think those are some of the concerns that they have right now.
Well, you spent some time out there. What did you see? I mean, how quickly is this development happening?
Well, first of all, the factories themselves are so large – they are much bigger, I think, than we can even conceive. Until you stand in front of it and you realize how gargantuan these buildings are, these structures are, it’s really hard to conceive of.
What’s interesting is so much of this land in rural Grayson County is beginning to get sold. So there aren’t an enormous amount of developments there yet, but there are plots of land that have now changed hands. Some ranches that were in families for two or three or four generations are now in the hands of developers who are ready to start building houses.
What’s happening in Sherman is happening to a smaller degree also in Taylor, Texas, outside Austin, where Samsung is building a chips factory as well. It’s smaller than the factories that are being built in Sherman, but it’s also in a rural area.
And so they’re going to get what’s happening in Grayson County in rural Williamson County to a smaller degree. It’s going to be really fascinating to see. It’s going to affect Texas an enormous amount.
The Samsung semiconductor plant is surrounded by cranes while under construction in Taylor on April 12, 2024.
Renee Dominguez / KUT News
So some big changes. Well, speaking of big changes, do you have any sense of what will happen under President Trump when it comes to the CHIPS Act?
So this is a big question. The reason these factories are being built is because of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed by the Biden administration, although it had enormous Republican support in both the House and Senate.
And Donald Trump, I think on the Joe Rogan podcast, he said he thought the CHIPS deal was a terrible deal. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was asked if there was going to be a repeal, and he said yes, he thought that there would be a repeal of the CHIPS Act, and then immediately corrected himself and said, no, that was not on the agenda for repeal.
And President Trump’s nominee for secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, has said that he plans on going forward with the CHIPS Act in the state that it is right now. So it really is a big question, and it’s going to affect an enormous amount of people. It’s going to affect us all indirectly. And right now, like so many things in America, we just don’t know.
It sounds like this is something that’s underway and can’t really be stopped. But could it slow down if the CHIPS Act is repealed?
So the two factories that are under construction right now will be finished. But Texas Instruments is planning on four of these massive factories. And if the CHIPS Act funding is pulled, the chances that all four of those get built are not great. And so what could be, you know, tens of thousands of jobs in the area might be a couple of thousand jobs.
