LIBERTY, Mo. — Liberty officials voted Monday to approve $1.4 billion in bonds and $202.7 million in tax abatements over 25 years for a new Metrobloks data center.
The project, which had its first phase approved in December, will be located on Old Hughes Road.
Metrobloks plans to build three buildings totaling approximately 568,800 square feet.
Brandon Smith, Liberty's economic development director, said the city will not be financially responsible for the bonds. City leaders said Metrobloks buys the bonds itself and is responsible for paying the bondholders.
"There are other cities that back the bonds," Smith said. "We will not back the bonds."
In exchange for the tax abatements, the city says Metrobloks will make about $49 million in payments distributed among government entities that normally rely on property taxes, including schools, libraries, and others.
"If this development were not to go to that site, we would see a tax over that 25 years of $33,728 divided amongst all taxing entities," Smith said.
Maggie Duffin, who was born and raised in Liberty, spoke to the city council to share her concerns about the proposed data center.
"Yeah, it sounds all nice and fine and dandy, but at the end of the day, it just doesn't seem like a good cost-benefit analysis for our citizens of Liberty" Duffin said. "There’s a neighborhood just across the street from there."
Jason Klindt from Evergy addressed how the campus will impact the local power grid.
"What this project will do is put a lot more kilowatt hours being used, which will drive down the fixed costs for everyone," Klindt said. "So as long as this project isn't causing me to build generation, it is going to be a net positive for customers in our service territory. I'm not saying there won't ever be another rate increase. What I am saying is that this project should put downward pressure on rates."
I previously spoke to the mayor about concerns residents might have regarding a data center coming to Liberty.
"Well, we made sure that it wasn't a data center that was going to use power that we didn't have or use water we couldn't produce," the mayor said.
On Monday, I requested another interview with the mayor, but the city said they would wait to have him comment until after a decision was made on the data center.
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