Texas

According to the System’s own project justification, the existing tower maintains water pressure of just 51 to 55 pounds per square inch — no longer enough to meet fire-protection and irrigation demands as new buildings, including the Semiconductor Institute, come online. Every new building at RELLIS currently needs its own separate pumps just to bring water pressure up to code.

The new tower is designed to fix that campus-wide, rather than building by building.

Albritton said reliable utilities are just as important to attracting major projects as the research itself.

“You need two things: electricity and water,” Albritton said. “we have to know we have consistent water that we can, for people that want to come, that we can assure them that water will not be an issue.”

Albritton described the new tower as “an outward sign of making sure everybody realizes we have the water to service whatever it is you want to bring.”