College Station council denies Priority Power land-sale after hours of public opposition

Mayor John P. Nichols opened a long, heavily attended City Council meeting Sept. 11 by moving a high-profile real-estate item — a proposed sale of roughly 200 acres in Midtown Business Park to Priority Power Management LLC — up the agenda and inviting a staff presentation and company briefing. City staff said the deal would put the land under option at $150,000 per acre while the buyer performs feasibility studies on power and water and completes a due-diligence period before closing.

The city’s chief development officer, Michael Ostrovsky, told council the property has been zoned M-1 industrial for decades and reviewed the contract structure, environmental and operational safeguards under consideration, and the scale of potential development depending on how much power could be brought to the site. "This is a permitted use within that district," Ostrovsky said, but he emphasized the prospect required separate power and water agreements and significant studies before construction could begin.

Brandon Schwertner, identified in the meeting as the CEO of Priority Power, briefed the council and the public on his company’s approach. He described Priority Power as a developer and energy manager that arranges generation, transmission and cooling solutions for large compute facilities. Schwertner said Priority Power would remove explicit references to cryptocurrency mining from the contract language and pressed for a feasibility period that would allow the firm to secure the large electrical loads it said tenants would require. "I'm Brandon Schwertner. I'm…