Win With Trash... | Yoakum, Texas
Boring cash flow wins. Yoakum owns waste, keeps the rate low, and builds sites for operators.
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Last week’s EDO Roundup…
Meta picks El Paso for a $1.5B AI data center (Oct 20, 2025)
Big win for West Texas: 1.2M sq ft, scalable toward 1 GW, ~1,800 construction jobs and ~100 ops jobs when running. This puts El Paso on the national AI map and signals more supplier interest across the Borderplex.
San Antonio lands a $272M Vantage data center build (Oct 21, 2025)
Filing shows a 214,526-sq-ft, two-story facility on Rogers Rd with work running into 2027. Expect follow-on activity around power, fiber, and specialized contractors on the city’s northwest side.
South Texas data center will tap “stranded” wind power (Oct 21, 2025)
Soluna’s Project Kati in Willacy County is designed as a flexible load; 83 MW first phase for Bitcoin, another 83 MW for AI/HPC. It soaks up wind that can’t reach the grid, turning curtailment into compute.
TWC launches Employer Child Care Solutions technical assistance (Oct 22, 2025)
New TA program to help employers stand up child-care solutions that improve retention and hiring. Useful add-on for EDOs bundling workforce supports with recruitment or BRE.
Apple’s Houston-built AI servers are now shipping (Oct 23, 2025)
Apple quietly started shipping AI servers from its ~250k-sq-ft north Houston site, months ahead of schedule. It’s a strong signal for local supply chains and talent pipelines tied to Private Cloud Compute.
OpenAI + Oracle plan off-grid “Stargate” site in Shackelford County (Oct 23, 2025)
Second Texas campus to run on a massive natural-gas microgrid, sidestepping long interconnection queues. Translation: faster timelines and demand for gas-adjacent land, switchyards, and specialized O&M.
TWC awards $350K Texas Talent Connection grant to VIDA (RGV) (Oct 23, 2025)
Funds upskilling tied to high-demand careers in the Valley. Pair this with employer cohorts to accelerate job placement.
Another RGV boost, money for training that feeds directly into local hiring needs. Good fit for sector partnerships and TEA/ISD alignment.
Win With Trash...
Issue 15
B.L.U.F. Yoakum is a small legacy-manufacturing city stabilizing on an unusual engine, regional waste transfer revenue. General Fund revenues are $13.19M for FY2026, with 33% tied to solid waste and transfer-station receipts, which keeps the city’s property tax rate low at $0.205 per $100.
Federal dollars are flowing into “shovel-ready” industrial capacity. A $2.5M EDA grant funds new water and sewer lines for Industrial Park II, positioning the site for production and distribution users.
Yoakum straddles DeWitt and Lavaca Counties with access to multiple freight corridors. The town’s identity shifted over a century from leather and rail to meat processing and today’s waste-logistics node. The question is not whether Yoakum will hyper-grow, it is whether the city can convert targeted infrastructure and low operating costs into selective, durable wins.
City Financial Profile
Yoakum runs a lean budget with minimal city-side debt and an unusually diversified fee base.
Budget scale: FY2026 General Fund revenue totals $13,190,841. Across all funds on the public notice, the city shows revenue lines for utilities, airport, HOT, and YEDC that, in aggregate, exceed $35M.
Revenue mix: Transfer Station $2.75M plus Solid Waste $1.60M equals $4.35M, or ~33% of General Fund revenue. Sales tax is $1.69M, and EMS revenue is $350K. Property tax is $796,101.
Tax rate: The adopted city rate is $0.205000 per $100 valuation for FY2025, split $0.166900 M&O and $0.038100 I&S. On a $100,000 home, that is about $205 in city tax.
Debt profile: The 2024 audit shows no bonded debt in governmental activities and bonds carried in business-type activities, with FY2025 utility debt service budgeted at $455,800.
Grants and capital: $2.5M EDA disaster-supplement funds water and sewer for Industrial Park II, with specified LF of 12-inch water, 8-inch force main, and 12-inch gravity sewer. The city also documents GLO-funded sewer trunk replacement and manhole work in public notices.
Takeaway. Yoakum’s finances are sound for a city its size, supported by enterprise-like fees instead of high city tax rates. The model works, but concentration risk exists in waste-related revenues and utilities, which warrants conservative planning and steady reserves.
Economic Drivers
Legacy anchors remain, with targeted upgrades to keep them competitive.
Meat processing. Eddy Foods operates a USDA-inspected, large-format facility in Yoakum and continues investing to support capacity.
Leather goods. Circle Y Saddles manufactures Western saddles in Yoakum and sells nationally and internationally, sustaining the town’s “Land of Leather” heritage.
Western apparel. Double D Ranchwear designs and ships from its Yoakum headquarters.
Insurance services. Hochheim Prairie Insurance maintains its corporate office in Yoakum, adding white-collar payroll to the base.
City service revenue. Ambulance collections rose after contracting with Emergicon in 2023, strengthening a small but growing service line.
Takeaway. The core employers are seasoned, steady, and place-rooted. Growth upside is not explosive, but investment in capacity and services helps hold payroll and output through cycles.
Business Climate and Growth Indicators
Regulatory friction is low, sites are improving, and incentives exist, but labor depth is thin.
Permitting and code. Standard municipal zoning with industrial districts. No single-door “big city” process, but precedent shows the city can move routine approvals efficiently.
Industrial readiness. Industrial Park II sits at US-77A and FM-3475, with EDA-funded water and sewer underway. Prior coverage cites a ~60-acre park and “shovel-ready” intent.
Incentive geography. Public materials note the park’s location within a Texas Enterprise Zone and a federal Opportunity Zone covering a Lavaca County tract that includes parts of Yoakum.
Macro costs. City-side tax burden remains low versus typical Texas totals because Yoakum leans on fees. Texas overall has high effective property tax rates driven by schools and counties, not state tax.
Takeaway. For end users who value operating economics over deep talent pools, Yoakum is straightforward. The city is preparing land and utilities first, then letting cost structure do the selling.
Opportunity Gaps
Yoakum can win with targeted, margin-driven plays that fit its infrastructure and location.
Contract manufacturing and light industrial services
Market Opportunity. EDA-funded utilities at Industrial Park II plus low real estate costs create room for fabrication, components, and co-packing serving San Antonio, Houston, and coastal freight.
The Need / Gap. Larger metros face cost and capacity pressure. Yoakum can absorb overflow with serviced land and practical access to US-77A and I-10 corridors. Validate power, gas, and water specs with the city during diligence.
Waste management and recycling services
Market Opportunity. The city already books $2.75M transfer station revenue plus $1.60M in solid waste. Add materials sorting, C&D processing, and oilfield waste handling to lift margins.
The Need / Gap. Rural Texas has limited specialized recycling capacity. Yoakum’s permits, location, and vendor ties can consolidate regional streams at scale.
Regional medical transport and urgent care
Market Opportunity. EMS collections improved after professionalized billing, signaling demand and better revenue capture. A private ALS transport and urgent-care model could extend coverage to nearby communities.
The Need / Gap. Aging populations and long drives to regional hospitals leave coverage holes. Transport, transfers, and basic urgent care close that gap.
Takeaway. These plays do not chase trend sectors. They compound the city’s actual strengths, create cash-flowing jobs, and ladder into the existing fee-supported model.
Closing Insight
Yoakum shows how a city can trade hype for operating leverage. Get the sites service-ready, keep the tax ask modest, and monetize the geography you actually have. The win here is measured in steady payroll, not headlines. If your pipeline includes cost-sensitive operators who need serviced dirt and predictable fees, Yoakum belongs on the short list.
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Yoakum’s Power-Ready Site Advantage: Capturing Demand through Industrial Microgrids
Texas’s rapid industrial expansion, particularly in data centers and advanced manufacturing, has hit a binding constraint: ERCOT interconnection queues and load growth. That constraint is reshaping developer behavior. Power now comes before real estate. Rural markets that can guarantee speed-to-market have an opening.
The clear trend is the move to Behind-the-Meter (BTM) industrial power: private microgrids and onsite generation that bypass utility delays. An estimated 25–33% of new data center load through 2030 is expected to be served by BTM generation.
Yoakum, Texas, is set up to play this well…
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