What data centers mean for local homeowners
Abilene is changing. Here’s what that means for those of us thinking about what’s next.
By Megan Lublin/Executive Director, Wesley Court Senior Living
If you’ve lived in Abilene for any length of time, you’ve watched the city change before. Dyess Air Force Base expansions, the oil cycles, the universities growing and contracting. We’ve seen booms come and go.
Megan Lublin
What’s happening right now feels different in scale, though. The Stargate data center alone has brought roughly 6,000 construction workers to a city of about 130,000, and more data center projects are on the way. Dyess is expanding its mission again. The housing market has tightened in a way most of us haven’t seen before.
For homeowners, that’s actually meaningful news. Homes in established Abilene neighborhoods are selling for more than they were a few years ago, and they’re selling faster. If you’ve been in your house a long time, the equity you’ve built is worth more today than it was when you last had reason to think about it.
Most people don’t think seriously about what comes after their family home until something forces the question – a fall, a diagnosis, the loss of a spouse, a roof that finally needs replacing on a budget that doesn’t have room for it. After years of talking with retiring adults and their families, I can tell you that when the decision gets made under that kind of pressure, it’s almost always harder than it needed to be.
The current moment is unusual in that it gives people the opposite experience. You can think about what’s next while you’re well. While you have time. While the market is working in your favor rather than against you.
What I’d gently push back on is the assumption a lot of people still carry that the only options are “stay in the home I’ve always lived in” or “move into a nursing home.”
Senior living in 2026 isn’t what it was a generation ago. When Wesley Court opened on Antilley Road in 2004, we were the first community in West Texas to offer a full continuum of care – independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing – on a single campus.
The independent side of that campus is something most people in Abilene have never actually seen. Our executive homes sit on a 70-acre property and run from around 1,800 to 2,800 square feet – two and three bedrooms, two-car garages, gourmet kitchens with granite and stainless, walk-in showers, covered back porches, real yards. They’re the kind of homes you’d be happy to host your family in for the holidays.
The difference from owning is that someone else handles the lawn, the roof, the repairs, the property taxes on the structure, and the insurance on the building. And if circumstances change years down the road, the care is already there. No second move. No scrambling.
That’s a very different picture than what most people imagine when they hear the words “senior living.”
I don’t think there’s a universally right answer to when, or whether, to make a change like this. Some people genuinely want to stay in the home they raised their family in for as long as they possibly can, and that’s a legitimate choice.
But for people who have been quietly thinking about it – wondering if this is the year, wondering what their options actually look like – Abilene right now is a uniquely good time to take a real look. You’ve worked a long time to have choices. The current market gives you more of them than you’ve had in a while.
