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Bettesworth Construction
3D Printing

USA’s First 3D-Printed Starbucks Coffee Shop Is in Brownsville, Texas

Starbucks' first 3D-printed U.S. store is at 2491 Boca Chica Boulevard in Brownsville, Texas, and opened in May 2025. The printer formed the concrete walls; conventional work completed the building.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 5 min read
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Starbucks’ first 3D-printed U.S. store is at 2491 Boca Chica Boulevard in Brownsville, Texas, and it opened in May 2025. Starbucks confirmed the first-in-the-U.S. status. The printer formed the concrete walls of the 1,400-square-foot building, but the store also depended on engineering, building services and conventional construction work to become a working café.

Where the store is and how the opening unfolded

The Brownsville location is the first Starbucks in the United States built with 3D-printed concrete walls. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) project record lists the address above and describes a pick-up-only store with a drive-through. The City of Brownsville describes drive-thru and walk-up service. The two descriptions differ, so confirm the service options with Starbucks before planning a visit.

The sequence of public milestones is as follows:

  1. March 16, 2023: scheduled start date listed in the TDLR project record.
  2. April 24, 2025: the San Antonio Express-News reported that Starbucks had confirmed the first-location claim and that the store was expected to open soon.
  3. April 29, 2025: the Associated Press (AP) reported the same confirmation and quoted outside experts.
  4. May 2, 2025: opening date given by Case Engineering, the structural and MEP engineering firm on the project.
  5. May 6, 2025: the City of Brownsville announced the opening.
  6. September 24, 2024 (scheduled): the completion date in the TDLR record. This is a filing date, not a verified on-site finish date, and it falls before the May 2025 opening.

Because the filing dates and the engineer’s account describe different things, read them as separate records rather than as one timeline of construction work.

What “3D printed” covers

The printed component is the concrete building shell. A computer-controlled robotic system extruded the walls in successive layers on site. Everything else, including the roof, interior fit-out and the building systems, was built with conventional methods. The shell alone was not the finished store.

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The planning consequence was significant. Case Project Manager Devin Klein explained: “Once the concrete walls are 3D printed, you cannot to drill into them, as it would compromise the structure, so all of our MEP design work had to be finalized upfront as part of the final 3D print program for the walls.” In practice, mechanical, electrical and plumbing routes had to be fixed in the design before printing began, because later coring or drilling through printed walls was not an option.

The printer manufacturer is COBOD. A secondary New Atlas report names a COBOD BOD2 machine, but the project-team account names only COBOD. Treat the model as unconfirmed unless a primary source is found. Printer specifications, concrete mix details and total print duration have not been published in the sources reviewed.

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Size, cost and schedule

The figures below come from different sources and carry different qualifications. Read each row with its note.

Item Figure Source and qualification
Floor area 1,400 square feet TDLR project record; Case Engineering describes the same size.
Project cost $1,198,000 (estimate) TDLR project record. This is the figure in the filing, not a confirmed final cost.
Construction schedule About five months Case Engineering’s account, published after the May 2, 2025 opening. This is the engineer’s characterization, not an audited on-site record.
Filing dates Start March 16, 2023; completion September 24, 2024 (scheduled) TDLR project record. These are listed dates in the filing and are not a measure of how long printing or building work took.
Opening May 2, 2025 Case Engineering. The City announced the opening on May 6, 2025.

The cost figure is the only one in the set that is a financial number, and it is an estimate. No final spend has been published in the sources reviewed, and no line-by-line breakdown separates printed work from conventional work.

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Who worked on the project

The participants named across the City’s announcement and Case Engineering’s account are:

  • Starbucks: the client and the company that confirmed the first-location status.
  • PERI 3D Construction: named by Case Engineering as a project participant on the printing side.
  • COBOD International: the printer manufacturer, as named by Case Engineering.
  • NewGround: the architect, as named by Case Engineering.
  • Case Engineering: structural and MEP engineering.
  • Lakeside Commercial Builders: the contractor the City says constructed the project on site.

What outside experts said

The AP report quoted two experts. Their comments are general observations about the technology, not analyses of this store.

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James Rose, Institute for Smart Structures, University of Tennessee

Rose told AP: “It’s early days yet,” and added: “I’m happy to see people doing all of these different things with it, and I think at some point we’ll figure out what its best use is. But right now I think you’re going to see lots of experimentation, and I think that’s a good thing.” His framing treats the Brownsville store as one experiment among many, not as a settled model for building.

Andrew McCoy, Myers-Lawson School of Construction, Virginia Tech

McCoy called the store “leading edge.” According to AP, he said 3D construction generally costs more than traditional wood framing at present, that it may help with labor shortages, and that it could become more cost competitive over time. These are his general views on the sector and do not measure this building’s cost.

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What the project does not settle

This is a single building, not a controlled comparison. The table below lists the questions a fair comparison with conventional construction would need answered, and what the published record shows for each.

Question What the record shows
Final cost versus conventional build of similar size Not stated. Only an estimated cost of $1,198,000 is published, with no conventional counterpart.
Total time versus a conventional build Not stated. The five-month figure comes from the engineer; no comparable project timeline is published.
Labor requirements Not stated for this project. Expert comments are general.
Share of the building that was printed The concrete walls. The roof, interior and building systems were conventional work.
Long-term performance Not stated. The store opened in 2025, too recently for published performance data.

Without these comparisons, the Brownsville store is best read as a documented first of its kind in the United States, not as evidence that the method is cheaper or faster.

Before you visit

  • The City’s May 2025 announcement listed daily hours of 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Those hours were not checked against current listings as of October 2026, so confirm them with Starbucks.
  • Confirm which service options are offered, since the filing and the City describe them differently.

The street address is 2491 Boca Chica Boulevard, Brownsville, Texas.

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