Platte County’s top elected official has voiced concerns over the $100 billion data center development announced in the KCI corridor.
The project was announced earlier this year, and dubbed “Project Kestral” by Port KC, an organization chartered by the City of Kansas City to cultivate partnerships to “create a more globally connected and competitive Kansas City.”
Platte County Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker issued a statement Monday, Oct. 27 outlining his opposition to the project.
“The project as currently structured gives massive property and sales tax subsidies to one of the world’s largest and richest corporations at the expense of our residents, small businesses, and essential public services,” Fricker said in the statement, which appears in full on Page 2.
Planned on 379 acres within an existing industrial mega site, KCI-29, the project will consist of six hyperscale data centers totaling up to 1.8 million square feet upon full build-out. Designed to power the next generation of cloud computing and technology-driven industries, the campus represents one of the largest technology investments in the region’s history by one of the world’s leading tech companies, according to Port KC.
Fricker is less than impressed with Port KC’s project.
“The enormous demands for water and electricity posed by six hyperscale data centers will inevitably drive-up utility rates for ordinary households and small businesses as the cost of new and expanded power plants, grid improvements, and water treatment facilities are passed on to households and small businesses,” Fricker said. “Evergy’s recent 13.4% rate increase was a direct result of the need to add generation capacity, and Evergy’s first quarter 2025 investor call highlighted new and expanding data center development as the primary driver of the need to expand generation capacity.”
According to John Stephens, CEO of Port KC, the data center is more than a technology investment, providing a long-term partnership with the community at large.
“From strengthening workforce development and education programs to improving infrastructure and creating high-value jobs, this project will help power both the digital economy and local opportunity for decades to come,” Stephens said in a press release issued in August.
The project is expected to generate over $110 million in new tax revenue across all phases over the bond term. The first payment of $2.62 million will be paid during the first five years to the northland school districts’ new Northland Career Center.
Fricker feels that other non-profit organizations are left behind by this proposal.
“A total of $16 million will go towards ‘area’ workforce development, but why wasn’t similar financial support offered to the other vital public service entities in Platte County like the Health Department, the Senior Services Fund, the Mental Health Board, the Platte County Library, and the Developmentally Disabled Board, fire and ambulance districts, and municipalities?” Fricker said. “Why were these critical local resources completely ignored in favor of the narrowly targeted benefits as currently structured? Are free mental health services less important than workforce development?”
He urges Port KC to restructure the project to benefit all platte county residents, businesses and public service agencies, and called upon the state legislature to reform Port KC itself.