Selling it before they own it.
A Nevada company called 1606 Corp. has been trying to buy the old biomass power plant in North Lufkin since spring. It still hasn’t closed. It still doesn’t have the money. And it’s already shopping the site to AI data centers.
The deal
- What
- About 132 acres and a 55-megawatt biomass power plant in North Lufkin.
- Buyer
- 1606 Corp., a penny-stock company that trades over the counter as CBDW.
- Plan
- Use the plant’s power to run AI data centers right on site.
- Deadline
- Oct. 31, 2026. It was supposed to close April 15, then May 22. It’s been pushed back several times.
In their own words
You don’t have to take our word for any of this. It’s all in what 1606 has told the federal government and its own investors:
- They don’t have the money. Closing depends on financing that, by their own account, hasn’t been secured.
- It may never close. They say there’s no guarantee the purchase happens by Oct. 31, or at all.
- They’re already shopping it. They hired MDM Group to take the site to hyperscale operators, AI companies and investors.
- They might flip it. One option they list is selling or handing off their contract to buy the plant to somebody else.
- The plant may not even run. It’s being bought “as-is,” and the seller makes no promise the equipment works.
- The title isn’t clean. Pending tax and other lawsuits affect the property, and 1606 says it can’t promise those get resolved.
- They’ve got money on the line. They’ve paid non-refundable fees they lose if the deal falls apart.
Here’s what this looks like to us [Our reading]
A company that can’t pay for a power plant is out pitching it to data centers before the ink’s dry. That looks like a company hoping somebody with deep pockets shows up to pay for a purchase it can’t finance on its own, or takes the contract off its hands.
Either way, the folks deciding what happens to that site are investors and data center companies. Nobody’s asked the people who live here.
What we don’t know yet
- Whether the deal closes Oct. 31, gets pushed back again, or falls apart.
- Which data center companies MDM has pitched, and whether any of them bit.
- Where a data center on this site would get its water.
What happens next
1606 has to tell its investors what happens with the deal. We’ll be watching its next SEC filing after Oct. 31 and will update this page when it lands.
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