$2M TCC Data Center Bid in Fort Worth Tracks 7 LV Systems

A $2 million data center renovation in downtown Fort Worth is in an active bid window. Tarrant County College District is seeking proposals for a 4,070-square-foot enclosure and MEP upgrade at its Trinity River Campus. Signal tracks seven low voltage coordination targets on the job and an estimated $150,000 low voltage opportunity. Vendor questions are due October 14, 2026, and proposals are due October 21, 2026.

Project Overview

The work centers on the existing data center and server-room area at Tarrant County College's Trinity River Campus, 300 Trinity Campus Circle. The public solicitation identifies selective demolition, modifications to the raised access floor, new demountable fire-rated enclosures, welded-wire security partitions, and upgrades to the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems supporting the room. The package also calls out modifications to existing fire suppression, cooling, and water-detection infrastructure.

This is not a distant capital-plan entry. RFP 26-017 is open, with proposals due October 21. The Texas accessibility filing is also concrete: the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation record lists a November 1, 2026 construction start, April 1, 2027 completion, $2 million estimated cost, 4,070 square feet, and review-complete status.

The city permit remains in an awaiting-client-reply status, so contractors should treat the procurement documents—not a scraped permit label—as the schedule authority. That distinction matters. The opportunity is active, but the issued addenda, final drawings, bid form, and owner clarifications control what belongs in each trade package.

Project	TCCD Data Center Enclosure & MEP Upgrades
Location	300 Trinity Campus Circle, Fort Worth, Texas 76102
Owner	Tarrant County College District
Construction Value	$2 million
Renovation Area	4,070 square feet
Procurement	RFP 26-017; proposals due October 21, 2026
TDLR Schedule	November 1, 2026 to April 1, 2027
Signal LV Score	10/10

Why This Bid Is Different

The dollar figure is modest by data-center standards, but the procurement state is unusually useful: a contractor can still act. The RFP classification includes commercial and institutional building construction, plumbing and HVAC work, and electrical contractors and wiring installation contractors. The notice also encourages alliances with historically underutilized business firms and calls for standard public-work response items such as a price proposal, bid bond, and insurance documentation.

The scope is also concentrated. A 4,070-square-foot critical room with a $2 million construction budget carries far more coordination per square foot than a conventional classroom remodel. Demountable fire-rated walls, security mesh, raised-floor changes, cooling, water detection, fire suppression, and electrical distribution all converge in the same footprint. That density creates opportunity, but it also punishes vague division-of-responsibility language.

The correct bidding question is not merely, “How many data drops?” It is, “Who owns every device, pathway, shutdown, migration, test, and restoration step while the college's production environment remains protected?” A clean number needs written assumptions for after-hours work, escort requirements, temporary monitoring, dust control, fire-system impairment, cable migration, device relocation, owner-furnished equipment, and final documentation.

Key Players

Tarrant County College District is the owner and procurement authority. The downtown Trinity River Campus opened in 2009 and houses classrooms, student services, administrative functions, a police department, and healthcare-professions programs. An outage at the campus data center therefore touches more than a single department.

The TDLR filing names LBL Architects as the design firm. LBL has prior Tarrant County College work in its portfolio, including higher-education renovations involving data, security, electrical, laboratory, and building-system upgrades. No general contractor is identified in the source record because this package is still in procurement; inventing one here would be fiction with a hard hat.

Role	Organization	What Matters to LV Bidders
Owner	Tarrant County College District	Controls the RFP, campus standards, access rules, operational windows, and acceptance requirements.
Design Firm	LBL Architects	Named in the TDLR filing; bidders should route scope conflicts and drawing questions through the formal RFI channel.
General Contractor	Not yet selected	The open procurement means the prime and trade structure remain actionable.

Confirmed Scope Versus Signal Coordination Targets

The public summaries confirm the enclosure, raised floor, security partitions, MEP, fire suppression, cooling, and water-detection work. They do not publicly confirm every low voltage system in Signal's seven-system list. Contractors should use the list below as a coordination checklist and then verify inclusion, quantities, manufacturers, and responsibility against the bid set and addenda.

System	Likely Interface	Bid Question	Complexity
Structured Cabling	Existing server-room links, pathways, patching, and relocations affected by the new enclosure and raised-floor work.	Which live links move, who performs cutovers, and what test documentation is required?	High
Fiber Optic	Backbone links may cross the reconfigured floor or terminate inside the reduced data-center footprint.	Are splicing, temporary bypasses, diverse routing, and optical-loss testing base bid or owner work?	High
Access Control	New demountable rated enclosures and security partitions may add or relocate controlled openings.	Who supplies electrified hardware, readers, controllers, door contacts, and fire-alarm release interfaces?	High
CCTV / Video Surveillance	New partitions can change sightlines and create blind areas around the critical room.	Are camera relocations included, and does the college furnish cameras, licenses, and VMS configuration?	Medium
DAS	Signal flags in-building wireless coordination, but the published 4,070-square-foot scope does not establish a standalone DAS package.	Is any campus DAS work shown, or should this system be explicitly excluded?	Low until confirmed
Audio/Visual	Potential monitoring displays, console connections, or support-room interfaces—not a conventional classroom AV package.	Are displays, KVM, dashboards, or control interfaces part of construction or IT procurement?	Medium until confirmed
Security / Monitoring	Welded-wire partitions and confirmed water detection create physical-security and environmental-alarm interfaces.	Which alarms report locally, to campus security, to building automation, or to the IT monitoring platform?	High

Estimated Low Voltage Value

The $2 million figure is a reported construction value, not a billion-dollar capital announcement padded with land and servers. LVN's data-center method applies a 6% building-systems basis and a 1.25 coordination multiplier for seven systems. The calculation is $2,000,000 × 6% × 1.25, producing an estimated $150,000 low voltage contract value.

Reported Construction Value	$2,000,000
Base LV Allowance	6%
Seven-System Multiplier	1.25×
Estimated LV Value	$150,000
Practical Planning Range	$120,000 to $200,000, pending bid-document scope

That estimate excludes servers, storage, active network electronics, major UPS equipment, cooling equipment, fire-suppression piping, and other owner or MEP purchases unless the drawings explicitly assign them to the low voltage contractor. It can move sharply if the package includes live fiber migration, access-control door hardware, camera licensing, after-hours cutovers, or a formal commissioning requirement.

The safest pricing structure is a firm base for drawing-defined work plus clearly described allowances or alternates for uncertain migration and owner-system integration. “By others” is not a scope strategy unless the other party is named and the handoff is documented.

Execution Risk: The Data Center Stays the Data Center

This renovation is inside an existing operational environment. A prior TCC Trinity River data-center infrastructure project illustrates the coordination problem: a TCC capital-program report said progress depended on the IT group moving equipment from a telecom room to new panels. That was a different project, but the lesson transfers directly—construction cannot declare a pathway available until operations has approved and executed the migration.

Bidders should demand a sequence that identifies pre-cutover testing, rollback conditions, outage approval, temporary environmental monitoring, alarm impairment procedures, and post-cutover validation. Fiber and copper results should be captured before disturbance and after restoration. Access-control and camera changes need an acceptance script, not merely a device count.

Fire-rated demountable assemblies add another interface. Cable penetrations, raceways, door hardware, and security mesh must preserve the rated boundary. If fire suppression or detection is impaired, the bid needs the owner's required watch procedure and the party responsible for restoring and documenting the system.

Skills and Certifications Required

Workstream	Useful Credentials	Critical Skills
Structured Cabling	BICSI INST1, INSTC, TECH, or RCDD oversight	Live-environment pathway planning, copper certification, labeling, rack and patch-field documentation
Fiber Optic	BICSI INSTF and manufacturer training	Fusion splicing, optical-loss testing, polarity control, temporary bypass planning, restoration records
Access Control	Manufacturer platform certification; applicable Texas security licensing	Electrified hardware coordination, reader and contact wiring, controller programming, release logic
CCTV	VMS and camera manufacturer certification	PoE networking, view verification, recording validation, licensing and retention coordination
Environmental Monitoring	BAS or monitoring-platform manufacturer training	Water-detection zoning, alarm routing, sensor commissioning, trend and notification testing

Entry-level technicians can support pathway installation, labeling, device mounting, and cable placement under supervision. Mid-level technicians should own terminations, testing, and deficiency correction. Senior leads need enough data-center experience to run method-of-procedure reviews, coordinate shutdowns, and refuse an unsafe cutover when prerequisites are missing.

Contractors should verify all Texas and local licensing requirements before bidding. Any fire-alarm, security, or access-control interface must be performed under the appropriate license and under the manufacturer and owner standards identified in the contract documents.

Market Signal

Fort Worth's headline data-center market is dominated by hyperscale campuses, but this project points to a second market: enterprise and institutional facilities that need smaller, operationally sensitive refreshes. These jobs can be accessible to regional integrators because the package is measured in thousands of square feet rather than hundreds of megawatts. The technical burden, however, is still mission-critical.

TCC's procurement history shows continued investment in the Trinity River Campus data environment. The current package follows prior UPS, electrical-distribution, telephone-service, and data-center support work. For contractors, that pattern matters more than a one-time device count: winning a documented cutover and closeout on one live campus can create credible experience for the district's next infrastructure package.

The immediate move is practical. Review the RFP and addenda, submit questions before October 14, and lock down the scope boundary for cabling, fiber, security, monitoring, fire interfaces, and owner-furnished IT equipment. The October 21 deadline is close enough that labor, bonding, vendor quotes, and cutover assumptions need to be assembled now.

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