John Arcello, advanced tech core market leader and project lead at DPR, says commitment to collaboration from the very start was key to hitting the project’s aggressive schedule. “We had about 25 people fly into Crusoe’s office in San Francisco, and we started whiteboarding the design, project schedule, approach and how we’re going to work together,” he recalls.

Each building houses four 106,000-sq-ft data halls connected by a central utility hall. Each hall takes the team roughly 10 months from start to energizing, with crews working concurrently in multiple halls.
Image courtesy of DPR Construction

“We started that day in March 2024; we had architects, engineers, electrical contractors, mechanical contractors, structural engineers in the room,” Arcello says. “We said, ‘We’ve got to do this. We’ve got to do it fast. It’s not about people elbowing out others for scopes of work and contracts. Who’s good at what? Go do it.’”

Arcello says DPR “operates like a CM/GC,” running schedule, safety and logistics. DPR tried to maximize self-perform work on the project, including concrete, drywall, doors, frames, hardware, struts and low-voltage electrical. It also incorporated engineering subsidiary GPLA for engineering and prefabrication partner Digital Building Components. Prime contractors Rosendin Electric and Southland Brandt are delivering their scopes using design-build. Although separate contracts, the companies work under a collaboration agreement.

Thomas Stemmerman, general superintendent at Rosendin, says commitment to collaboration made all the difference. In particular, he notes that the owner allowed the design and construction partners unusual amounts of independence.

“We were told, ‘Ignore the way that every other data center has been done and treat yourself like the professionals that you are,’” he recalls. “‘How would you want to make this installation, and how can you make it go faster? How could you make it more efficient? How could you make it safer for the installs?’ That’s what was passed down to us.”

GPLA designed exterior metal panels that were prefabricated off site by DPR self-perform crews. On each of the first two buildings, 672 prefabricated IMP panels were installed. Field installation averaged 15 to 20 panels per day. Each building was enclosed in less than eight weeks.
Photos courtesy of DPR Construction

Speed Through Repetition

The repetitive design called for each building to include four 106,000-sq-ft data halls connected by a central utility hall. Each hall is capable of accommodating 500 racks and up to 25MW of IT load, totaling 100MW combined per building. Arcello says each hall takes roughly 10 months from start to energizing, with crews working concurrently in multiple halls.

The additional six buildings—designed for a total of 1.2 gigawatts—began construction in March 2025 and are estimated to complete in mid-2026. Each building is designed to operate up to 50,000 Nvidia GB200 NVL72s on a single integrated network fabric.

Among the early considerations, the team recognized the need to enclose the structural steel buildings as quickly as possible. GPLA was tasked with delivering initial structural designs for steel mill orders within two weeks and completing fully detailed structural and fabrication models in under six weeks. The strategy enabled fabricated steel to arrive on site within the first three months. Arcello says the team met that schedule through a “clustered team” methodology, where specialized groups focused on primary structures, secondary and support systems and quality control—all while working concurrently. The approach minimized rework and streamlined processes, he says. To help speed installation, Arcello says DPR developed a prefabricated anchor bolt template system.

To enclose the buildings as quickly as possible, GPLA designed metal panels that were prefabricated off site by DPR self-perform crews. On each of the first two buildings, 672 prefabricated IMP panels were installed by Digital Building Components—DPR’s first use of the panel type.

To ease installation, the design team created only four unique panel types to make work as repeatable as possible. Panel manufacturing was completed in under 40 days with field installation averaging 15 to 20 panels per day. Each building was enclosed in less than eight weeks, allowing for rapid dry-in and early turnover to interior trades.

One major concern was power. Although there was a 200-MW substation in the area, it would not be enough to adequately supply the project, especially with the expansion. To meet demand, a 340-MW natural gas turbine power plant was added to the scope.

“Crusoe has a lot of history with oil and gas, so it did not flinch [and]offered to build a natural gas power plant on site,” Arcello says. “Within weeks we were designing and procuring natural gas turbines for the job.”

Repetitive design was critical, not only from hall to hall but within each hall. DPR maximized prefabrication building components as well as skids and multitrade racks. “The idea is that when you walk into a data hall, if you take 20 steps, you’ve seen the entire data hall,” Arcello says.

Stemmerman says Rosendin has modularized everything it possibly can. “That goes all the way into our underground racks,” he says. “I’ve got two styles of underground racks for all of our underground work so that [enables] easy installation.”

Within six months, the project scope was expanded from two buildings to eight.
Photo courtesy of DPR Construction

Keep It Simple

Stemmerman says it was also important not to overengineer design and installation. “A lot of times on data centers, they want two or three circuits per conduit,” he says. “They want a certain amount of spares and things like that, [which] at the end of the day don’t get used. We designed for the ability to make changes later if we needed to, but we didn’t overengineer it. We went for what was code required, what was industry standards and moved forward.”

In addition to major electrical requirements, data centers also have high demand for water. Matt Tieken, senior project manager at Southland Brandt, says the team designed a high-flow reverse osmosis flushing system that it projects can cut flushing water use in chilled water pipes by 75%. “That’s going to be a huge advantage, not only for Crusoe, but for the city of Abilene, so it does not have to supply us with this water.”

Throughout the project, high levels of collaboration and coordination have resulted in significant schedule saving, Stemmerman says. “We started to figure out real quick that we could take our level of coordination a lot higher than what we normally do when we all have ownership in the project,” he says “At one point, we needed to swap some equipment out, and by the time we were done, it wasn’t just Rosendin involved—it was the steel guys, it was Brandt, it was DPR. I had 84 individuals from the office that took part in some of the changes to make things stay on schedule. We had what could have been a 154-day delay, and we minimized that down to 28 days as a group.”

Workforce

One of the most daunting considerations was workforce, both in the field and at supervisory levels. In late July, the team reported 2,785 total crew members on site. As of May, total workhours on the first two buildings was about 2.75 million. DPR manages 60 subcontractors with another 30 subcontractors under the other prime partners. Peak workforce is expected to reach nearly 5,000 as a result of the expansion.

Stemmerman says Rosendin hasn’t struggled to fill its crews yet. Pulling workers from California to Maine, the company has more than 1,200 on site and could eventually expand to 1,600. The company has committed 180 supervisors to the project. “The work is good, the customer supports us all the way and safety is number one out here,” he adds. “There’s great morale on the job, and workers feel like they’re being respected. That is really bringing the people in.”

Tieken says he expects Southland Brandt’s workforce to exceed 900 with about 200 field supervisors.

Reuben Cheatham, DPR’s preconstruction lead on the project, says one driver of labor need is to have multiple crews “hopscotching” the project.

“We’ve gone from less of a standard crew flow to a hopscotch,” he says. “So when the crew on [data hall] A is done, it goes over to [data hall] C. Then the crew B goes over to D.”

Back For More

With work on the first phase nearly complete, the team is on to the second phase. Although adding the expansion was a major undertaking, Arcello says it was ultimately for the best, as the team could keep the same employees and crews throughout the job.

“We take all our lessons learned from that first build; we take the same team and we improve [the process],” he says.

With the project on target for mid-2026 delivery, the project’s aggressive scope and schedule, which some admitted seemed crazy at first, now appear possible.

“Our Abilene AI data center is a testament to what’s possible when speed meets precision in construction,” said Chris Dolan, chief data center officer at Crusoe, in a statement. “We challenged ourselves with incredibly ambitious timelines for this critical data center campus, and DPR Construction proved to be an indispensable partner every step of the way. They embraced our demanding schedule without ever sacrificing the meticulous quality and rigorous engineering required for mission critical infrastructure. This level of collaboration and execution is what makes Abilene a groundbreaking achievement.”