Killeen aims to build out industrial, office, commercial and retail uses at the 94-acre Wolf Technology Park.
KILLEEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP.
By Justin Sayers – Senior Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal
A prominent military community about 70 miles north of Austin aims to attract developers and tenants to a 94-acre technology park as the city works to diversify its workforce beyond the defense industry.
The Killeen Economic Development Corp. acquired land in May 2024 for what it's calling the Wolf Technology Park, which is a partnership with Texas A&M University-Central Texas. It's located at the corner of Texas Highway 195 and Stagecoach Road.
Stakeholders have since been planning what it could include and are making infrastructure investments to get the park shovel-ready, with the first piece aimed to be wrapped up later this year. They envision a mix of uses, including industrial, retail, commercial and office space that would be built in phases. They're aiming to find developers to build certain sites and have pitched some of the land for economic development projects either through the state or on their own.
Tyler Robert, vice president of economic development for Killeen EDC and Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce, said the idea for Wolf Technology Park stemmed from the growth in adjacent areas like Georgetown, Taylor and Round Rock. The goal is to "develop more in line with what our regional partners are doing," he said.
Killeen, which is the home of U.S. Army post Fort Hood and more than 156,000 people, has had some success as a landing spot for companies that do work in the Austin area, like MGC Pure Chemicals America Inc. and Dongjin Semichem Texas Inc., which both supply Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
The city sees an opportunity for more suppliers to companies in the metro in areas like information technology, life sciences and biotechnology, data centers and cloud computing, defense technology and systems engineering, logistics centers and advanced manufacturing, and business services and professional offices, Robert said, adding that these companies can do so while also taking advantage of the city's cheaper land costs, highly skilled workforce and lower housing costs.
Wolf Technology Park is also slated to serve as a research park for Texas A&M University Central Texas, allowing ideas and concepts generated at the university to have access to land, Robert said. The Killeen-based upper-division university was founded in 2009 and has about 3,500 students.
"That's one of the big parts of the whole original concept, was just having that ability afforded to the university and its endeavors to kind of grow and build out its own tech sectors," he said. "So we're really excited to see the university itself grow, and the projects and programs that are coming out of there will really be highlighted here at the technology park once everything's kind of started to build up."
Robert said they looked at land opportunities throughout the city before settling on this parcel, which is toward the southwest side of Bell County and closer to the Williamson County line. He said a big disadvantage for the city is that it isn't located directly on I-35, like Temple or Georgetown, so being more proximate to Williamson County was a key factor.
But the biggest challenge for the city has been telling its story, Robert said. He said it can be a struggle to highlight the fact that it has the capacity to grow and do so in a way "that will really shrink the divide" between Killeen and the Austin area.
Killeen also has a distinct workforce advantage. He said it has about 500 to 800 soldiers coming out of the base every month, and 40% stay in the area. In addition, 17% of those who left said they would have stayed if there were more employment opportunities.
"I think that's always been Killeen's biggest knock is having the opportunities to take advantage of the workforce that's already readily available," Robert said.