Meta's Hyperion data center turns rural Louisiana parish into construction boomtown

Meta's Hyperion data center, which the company says will span nearly 10 million square feet in Holly Ridge, Louisiana, is expected to support more than 7,500 jobs at peak construction. The project has brought a workforce larger than the population of Aspen, Colorado, into rural Richland Parish. Local businesses are benefiting from the workers' spending, but the influx is also straining the housing market and disrupting daily life, according to Business Insider.

Data from Grow NELA, the local economic development authority, shows Richland Parish's annual sales tax revenue climbed from $21 million in 2024 to $39 million in 2025. The organization expects that figure to reach $92 million by the end of 2026 and says the parish gained more sales tax revenue in 2025 alone than in the previous 20 years combined. A June study commissioned by Grow NELA estimated that spending and capital investment during construction will generate $162.9 million in local and state sales tax revenues.

Restaurant owners in nearby Rayville have seen a rebound. Tim Allen, who lived through years of decline, opened Holy Tacos in April 2025 after Meta announced the project, and he told Business Insider that old businesses have revitalized and new ones have opened. HeBrews Coffee & Eats, opened by TJ and Kaycie Weed in late 2021, now serves about 130 tickets a day and hits 30 drive-thru tickets within the first 90 minutes, the couple said. A HeBrews food truck opened in 2025 across from the Holly Ridge construction site because of Meta, and its Holly Ridge location delivers 450 lunch plates to the site twice a month, owner Shelbie Stephenson said.

David Rodgers and Linda Edwards co-founded Ice Queen in 2025 to sell $3 bags of ice to subcontractors and companies on the Meta project. The business has expanded into a one-stop supplier of coffee machines, cups, sugar packets, fridges, microwaves and straws. Rodgers said pallets of water are the biggest moneymaker because of safety concerns in the heat, with about 30 to 40 pallets delivered weekly at roughly $600 each; Liquid I.V. electrolyte pouches, sold for just over $1, are another key product, Edwards said. Richland Parish has seen temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit more than two dozen times since July, and Edwards said conditions may have reached 110 degrees.

Housing has also become a local business opportunity. Angel and Bryan Crawford opened the Antley Pines mobile home park in 2025 through their company Parish Line Properties, adding homes in December, May and July, all secured by deposits from Meta workers before they arrived, according to Business Insider. A fully furnished four-bedroom, two-bathroom mobile home eight miles from the construction site rents for an average of $3,000. The company owns 18 rental properties, 14 of which are set aside as workforce housing, and Crawford said location matters because many Meta workers put in six or seven days a week and 12-plus-hour shifts.