KSHB 41 reporter Isabella Ledonne reports on stories in Overland Park, Johnson County and topics about government accountability. This is a continuation of the ongoing series, Data, Dollars & Demand; a series of stories exploring data center impacts on Kansas City metro communities. Share your story idea with Isabella.
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Independence is the latest city in the area that could be getting a massive data center. But city and company leaders say the proposal is different than the ones currently operating or under development in the Northland.
Kansas City already has several hyper scale data centers with Google, Meta and two other companies. The massive campuses are expected to use millions of gallons of water and millions of watts of energy each day to keep the servers cool and running.
That's made some Independence neighbors skeptical of a Dutch company proposing a nearly 400-acre AI data center off of Little Blue Parkway and Missouri 78 Highway.
"I have some concerns with the impact this might have on my community," Stephon Pruitt, a resident, said. "[The company] doesn't have much to lose if we lose."
But unlike other typical data center developments, the company Nebius is proposing to fully finance and back a new power plant for all of Independence. The power plant would increase overall capacity for the City of Independence without needing to ask ratepayers for an increase, according to Independence Power and Light's (IPL) director.
"None of this is going to fall back on the ratepayers," Joe Hegendeffer, with Independence Power and Light,said. "There are lots of protections for the residents. 100% of this will be covered by the data center."
Residents currently make up about 90% of IPL's customer breakdown. With the addition of an AI data center, the customer percentage would flip to about 70% industrial.
Hegendeffer explained that could potentially lower the cost for neighbors.
"If you have bigger customers that you can sell to in bulk, it lowers the prices for all the other customers," Hegendeffer said.
The proposed data center would be on a closed loop system where it would recycle the water it uses, only requiring about 1.4 million gallons of water refilled annually.
A local representative for the Dutch company and attorney explained the system lowers overall water usage.
"We'll be using less water than your average restaurant per day," Mark Coulter said. "As opposed to your data centers from 10 years ago where it was an evaporation system where the water would go in and evaporate, that's not the case here."
The Independence data center would be the first flagship for Nebius in the American market. Coulter explained they are engaging with the public earlier than other traditional data center developments.
"The designs are not set," Coulter said. "We want to hear from the people. We want to hear from our future neighbors, from our community members. We want to move into the community and we want the community to feel like they are being heard."
But for the 250 people at the town hall on Monday afternoon, there's still the doubt that an AI bubble burst would put the cost of data centers on local communities.
"I'm just very concerned, not for myself, because I've had a long life, but there are children here," resident Laura Crawford said. "There are people who need to learn and live and grow."
Independence's mayor explained this is the largest development project the city has ever seen and could grow the general revenue fund by 40%.
"It will give us the opportunity to have better roads, better parks, better streets, better curbs," Mayor Rory Rowland said. "For the city to have the opportunity to have that infusion of cash has never been seen before."
But leaders like Rowland are still asking questions and evaluating the environmental impact before granting full approval.
"We need to make sure this project, in fact, works," Mayor Rowland said.
Nebius presented its study findings to city leaders on Monday night. The next step for the company is to submit a development incentive application within the next 40 days.
More coverage on data centers can be found here.
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