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Elon Musk’s rocket-launch and spacecraft company SpaceX is planning a five-level office in South Texas.
That’s according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The project, dubbed SpaceX’s “Starbase Office,” calls for $100 million in new construction in Brownsville, the filing shows.
The work includes an office mezzanine spanning more than 329,000 square feet that would serve as an addition to a 1 million-square-foot industrial factory. It’s located in the company’s Starbase, a spaceport, production and development facility spread over about 20 miles for SpaceX’s Starship rockets.
Construction is set to kick off Feb. 24 at the site near Boca Chica Beach along the Gulf of Mexico’s South Bay, with completion set for Jan. 1, 2025.
SpaceX, founded in 2002 by Musk, has slowly accumulated a foothold in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley to test its rockets for development around near orbital satellite launches and the Mars mission. The company has been lobbying to get its slice of Brownsville and the Boca Chica area formally renamed as Starbase, a nod to what it describes as its commitment to the region.
Beyond SpaceX, Musk has invested heavily in the Lone Star State in recent years, chiefly to avoid California’s more stringent and costly business policies. He moved the headquarters for Tesla and The Boring Co. to Austin and Bastrop, respectively. Central Texas is also home to Tesla’s gigafactory.
The bases for Neuralink and SpaceX remain in California. Musk also acquired X, formerly Twitter, last year.
The $100 million figure cited in the state filing would mark the largest construction project in Cameron County filed under the Space Exploration Technologies name. Earlier this year, the company filed plans for a $15 million shopping center and restaurant project it’s calling RioWest.
Recent moves from SpaceX include plans to launch the Intuitive Machines Nova Moon Lander on Feb. 14, and deorbit 100 of its older satellites.
©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
