Beale Infrastructure answers questions on its data center project in De Soto

DE SOTO, Kan. — KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers Johnson County. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of health care, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.

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De Soto residents have continued to voice their questions and concerns with two potential data center projects coming to town. Beale Infrastructure's $3 billion campus is one of them.

"We were all left blindsided," De Soto resident Sara VanDeCreek said in a previous interview with KSHB 41 Johnson County reporter Elyse Schoenig.

John Batten/KSHB 41

"It was going to be these four smaller data centers, and then all of a sudden, boom, we have these big ones," De Soto resident Toni Caldwell previously said.

KSHB 41 News has been working to get an extended one-on-one interview with Beale Infrastructure.

On Thursday, Schoenig spoke with Michelle Kauk, Beale's director of public policy and communications, for more than half an hour on several topics, including communicating project changes to the community.

"This is a very emotional topic right now," Kauk said. "People have a lot of feelings about data centers."

Beale's project was formally introduced to and approved by the De Soto City Council in August 2025. The size had more than doubled by the time the planning commission approved those plans earlier this year.

Schoenig asked Kauk about how the project changed, when it changed and Beale's transparency when it comes to reporting those changes.

Will Shaw/KSHB 41

"Those were initial plans. Those were design concepts," Kauk said. "For this particular project, it made sense to do an air-cooled closed-loop system. As a result of that, that does increase the square footage."

Transparency over the last year has been a repeated concern of residents. Schoenig asked Kauk how Beale would approach future changes.

"There's multiple opportunities that we have to present to council, which means presenting to the public and talking about the design, talking about the plans or any changes to that," Kauk said. "We share, to the extent possible, all the information that's available that we can put out there about the impacts of the project."

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