October 22, 2026 · Boca Chica · Land

Texas says it's not considering a Boca Chica State Park sale at its November meeting; sources named SpaceX as the prospective buyer

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission "is not considering the sale of the Boca Chica property at its November meeting," a department spokesperson told Texas Monthly. The magazine reported Oct. 16 that a draft agenda for the commission's Nov. 5 meeting listed the sale of "1,300 acres" in Cameron County for a closed-door executive session. Two sources told the magazine that SpaceX is the prospective buyer and that the land is Boca Chica State Park, next to Starbase.

• Not ruled out: sources told Texas Monthly the item could come up at a later date. As of the magazine's press time, the department had not answered follow-up questions, including whether the issue has been tabled indefinitely.
• The state's own notice: the department's notice of proposed real estate transactions for its Nov. 4-5 meeting, open for comment until 5 p.m. Nov. 4, lists seven items, one of them withdrawn. None is in Cameron County.
• The governor: at a news conference Monday, Oct. 19, Gov. Greg Abbott said, "What I know is that that's not coming up for a vote anytime soon," the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Tribune reported. He said he knew very little about the potential sale.
• What a sale takes: state law lets the department's director sell land "with the approval of the commission" when owning it "is no longer in the best interest of the department." The money has to go to "improving or acquiring other real property dedicated to the same purpose" (Parks and Wildlife Code, Section 13.009). A closed-door session can't settle it: under the Texas Open Meetings Act, a final vote on a matter discussed in closed session "may only be made in an open meeting." For the 2024 swap, the commission also held a public hearing after three weeks of newspaper notices and found, under Chapter 26 of the Parks and Wildlife Code, "no feasible and prudent alternative" to the use or taking of the 43 acres.
• How big: the draft agenda said "1,300 acres." The Texas Tribune put the park at 1,354 acres in March 2024 and at more than 1,055 acres this week. Those figures don't match.
• The park: the department bought it in 1994 and, until recently, leased it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which ran it as a unit of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, per the department's 2024 agenda. Texas Monthly says the lease ran until 2023.
• The 2024 swap: on March 4, 2024, the commission voted unanimously to pursue SpaceX's request to trade 43 acres of the park for 477 acres near the Bahia Grande Unit of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. Texas Monthly reports SpaceX later pulled out of that deal.
• The swap that closed: the federal one. Deeds recorded Oct. 5 moved about 727 acres of national wildlife refuge land to SpaceX. Our Oct. 17 story.

Next: we'll read the commission's Nov. 5 agenda when it posts.

Sources: Texas Monthly (Oct. 16, 2026) · Houston Chronicle (Oct. 19, 2026) · Texas Tribune (Oct. 19, 2026) · Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, public comment notice for the Nov. 4-5, 2026 meeting (read Oct. 22, 2026) · Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, March 4, 2024 commission agenda, Item 2 and Exhibit E · Texas Tribune, via ABC13 (March 4, 2024) · Texas Parks and Wildlife Code, Section 13.009 · Texas Government Code, Section 551.102