Blue Origin confirms $674M manufacturing campus in Hutto

Blue Origin confirmed this week that it will build a 1.3 million-square-foot manufacturing campus at Hutto Crossing Industrial Park along U.S. 79 in Hutto, finally putting a name to an aerospace project that had already moved through months of local and county economic-development approvals under the code names Project Blue Hub and Project Speed Racer. 

The Jeff Bezos-founded company will create more than 2,000 jobs in Williamson County, according to an announcement from Gov. Greg Abbott. Blue Origin said the campus represents a $674 million investment, while Abbott’s announcement described the capital investment as $554.78 million. The project is smaller than Samsung’s multibillion-dollar semiconductor campus in nearby Taylor, but it adds another advanced-manufacturing anchor to the fast-growing U.S. 79 corridor. 

Hutto sits just west of Samsung’s semiconductor fabrication plant in Taylor along U.S. 79. Samsung is not the whole story behind Hutto’s recent industrial growth, but it is part of the city’s sales pitch. The Hutto Economic Development Corporation (EDC) says proximity to Samsung’s Taylor fab and Tesla’s Del Valle gigafactory gives manufacturers a competitive edge, and previous industrial projects at the Hutto Megasite have been marketed toward Samsung suppliers and vendors. 

Blue Origin already has a Texas footprint tied to its broader goal of lowering the cost of spaceflight and supporting future space missions. The company’s Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas has operated since 2006 and is used for New Shepard suborbital flights and rocket testing. Hutto is different: Blue Origin describes Constellation Park as a manufacturing campus for satellite communications and space-infrastructure systems, including TeraWave, Quartz, solar arrays, avionics and telecommunications hardware. 

Blue Origin’s Hutto announcement follows two earlier 2026 moves showing the company is expanding its communications business on both commercial and government fronts. In January, the company announced TeraWave, a planned 5,408-satellite network for enterprise, data center and government users. In September, NASA selected Blue Origin for a Mars Telecommunications Network contract worth up to about $700 million to develop and operate a high-performance communications orbiter for current and future Mars missions. 

Different Blue Origin locations will serve different parts of that strategy. Blue Origin is headquartered in Kent, Wash., where it announced TeraWave in January and where the company has existing propulsion and launch-related manufacturing. The Mars orbiter will be built on Blue Origin’s Blue Ring spacecraft, which is in production at the company’s Huntsville, Ala., facility. And this week, the company announced its commitment to Hutto as a manufacturing hub for TeraWave, along with Quartz and satellite hardware such as solar arrays, avionics and telecommunications systems. 

The Hutto announcement also gives Central Texas a place in the high-profile race between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, two of the world’s richest people, to build the next generation of commercial spaceflight businesses. Musk’s SpaceX launches Starship test flights from South Texas and operates Starlink, its satellite internet network. Blue Origin launches New Shepard suborbital flights from near Van Horn in West Texas, launched its larger New Glenn rocket from Florida for the first time in 2025, and is now expanding into satellite communications and space-infrastructure manufacturing in Hutto. 

TeraWave would put Blue Origin in competition with SpaceX in the satellite communications market, though Blue Origin is pitching the network more narrowly than Starlink. Starlink already serves residential, business, maritime, aviation and government customers, while Blue Origin says TeraWave is designed for enterprise, data center and government users that need high-capacity, resilient global connectivity. 

Blue Origin said earlier this year that TeraWave is expected to include 5,408 optically connected satellites in low and medium Earth orbit, with deployment beginning in late 2027. 

The public paper trail for the Hutto deal began in May, when the Hutto EDC held a hearing on incentives for Project Blue Hub. Agenda materials described an aerospace-sector project seeking space for research and development, manufacturing, warehousing and logistics. The project was expected to occupy about 1.3 million square feet, invest about $632 million in real property and equipment and create more than 2,000 jobs with an average salary of $88,000. 

Public materials show the project was still being treated as a site-selection matter in May, when Hutto EDC described Project Blue Hub as an aerospace company seeking a location in Hutto. The same materials said the company was seeking incentives in the form of workforce grants, impact-fee reimbursement and consideration of a discounted land price on EDC-owned Megasite property. No action was taken on the performance agreement at that May meeting. 

On Aug. 6, the Hutto EDC approved an Economic Development Performance Agreement and undisclosed incentives for Project Blue Hub, and Hutto City Council discussed details afterward in closed session, according to the Taylor Press. 

Williamson County followed with its own agreement. On Aug. 20, the Commissioners Court approved a Chapter 381 economic development agreement involving Williamson County, Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC, Velocis Hutto Innovation Phase I LP and Velocis Hutto Innovation JV LP. The county agenda described the project as about 1 million square feet of industrial research space in Hutto for aerospace and defense research, development, inspection, testing and manufacturing. 

Hutto’s industrial surge has been years in the making, but it accelerated after Samsung chose nearby Taylor for its $17 billion semiconductor fab in 2021. Since then, developers have moved to position large sites along the U.S. 79 and State Highway 130 corridor for data centers, logistics, advanced manufacturing and supplier space. Hutto also completed an $18 million main road through its 1,400-acre Megasite in 2025, a piece of infrastructure local officials said was needed before several large industrial projects could move forward. 

The Blue Origin campus would join a growing list of industrial and technology projects in Hutto. Skybox Datacenters and Prologis are developing the PowerCampus data center project at the Hutto Megasite, while Titan Development has planned the 188-acre Hutto Mega TechCenter. Hutto Crossing, the industrial park tied to the Blue Origin site, is being developed by Velocis, Ironwood Realty Partners and MBK Industrial Properties, and has also drawn data center activity around Innovation Boulevard. 

Hutto openly markets itself for this type of project. The Hutto EDC lists advanced manufacturing and research and development among its target industries, citing the city’s location along U.S. 79 and State Highway 130, proximity to Samsung’s Taylor fab and Tesla’s Del Valle gigafactory, and nearby aerospace and defense anchors including Firefly Aerospace and Army Futures Command. 

The public cost of landing the Hutto deal is still unclear. Abbott’s announcement said Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC will receive an $18.17 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant from the state for the Hutto project. The state also awarded a $10,000 Veteran Created Job Bonus, a Texas Enterprise Fund add-on that pays $1,000 for each first-year job filled by a veteran.  

Hutto EDC materials for Project Blue Hub also identified local incentives under discussion, including workforce grants, impact-fee reimbursement and a possible discounted land price on EDC-owned Megasite property. Williamson County approved a Chapter 381 economic development agreement involving Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC in August, but the full value and performance terms of the local and county incentives were not immediately clear from the public materials reviewed. 

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