KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County, with a focus on Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
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The Independence City Council is weighing billions in tax incentives for a Dutch AI company that wants to build a data center in eastern Independence, an area of the city known as the Blue Valley.
Residents who live near the project have voiced a number of concerns, including the scale of the project among other things.
Nebius bought the 400-acre site, which straddles both sides of Bly Road north of Missouri 78 and east of Little Blue Parkway, from NorthPoint Development in December.
“The size and magnitude of this project is just crazy,” Monica Engel said.
She lives along nearby Bundschu Road, within a mile of the proposed data center.
Engel and her husband bought the property in 2021.
“It was about six months after we moved in here when all of that rezoning was taking place,” Engel said.
Independence has identified the Blue Valley as a possible location for an industrial park for several decades, but no plans ever materialized until NorthPoint bought the land after it was zoned for “business park and industrial use” in 2022.
Engel tried to fight the rezoning, but was resigned to the idea that warehouses and other development were inevitable along Little Blue Parkway.
“I told my husband, ‘Maybe we'll get a Starbucks and a Taco Bell, because those are my two guilty pleasures,” she said.
Engel didn’t expect millions of square feet of data center would be plopped so close to her property.
“I understand that they wanted to develop it, but this plan is just completely different from what they presented in 2022 and that is what is most concerning,” she said.
She worries about the impact on Independence’s water, the possibility of air pollution if the data center relies on diesel generators during peak times, the noise it could generate round the clock.
Engel, who works for a real-estate company, worries that the data center will cripple property values in its vicinity and knows how difficult it would be to find a house on acreage — they currently own about 7.5 acres — in today’s market compared with the gem they unearthed five years ago.
“It’s a nice, peaceful place to live,” Engel said. “When you find the place that you think is going to be your forever home, you want to stay there. ... Our homes are our largest life investment, and that really is scary.”
Many of Engel’s neighbors share her concerns and feel like the project is being fast-tracked and their concerns ignored.
“Why not slow down?” Daniel Morrehead, who lives on Bly Road, asked the Independence City Council during a public hearing Monday. “Why not have better communication?”
Engel also spoke at Monday’s meeting along with dozens more people for and against the Nebius project.
“I just think there's a lot of unknown,” she said. “... These things have destroyed other communities. They keep telling us this is going to be different, but it's like, how do we know it's going to be different?”
For its part, Nebius understands those concerns — and says it’s committed to being a good partner for Independence, with plans to ensure compliance with existing city, state and federal codes for noise, lighting, air emissions and water quality.
It plans to use a closed-loop system, which relies on demineralized water that gets topped annually rather than antiquated cooling systems that constantly churned through water.
Nebius, which is based in Amsterdam and already co-locates with Patmos at the former Kansas City Star Press Pavilion downtown, said the clientele for this project will be geared toward high-performance AI computing and modeling as opposed to cloud or data storage.
Nebius certainly has its supporters. Union contractors showed up in force Monday just like the opposition.
“There are thousands of jobs daily that will be created as a result of what this project will bring Independence,” Mike Talboy, the political director for the Greater Kansas City Building and Trades Council, said.
He estimated that 1,100 to 1,200 workers would be at the site during the years-long construction with possibly a few hundred more at nearby warehouses in the EastGate Commerce Center fabricating materials for the project.
Nebius and the city have yet to announce an agreement about the use — or possibly lack thereof — of union labor on the job, another issue opponents want clarity about, but the Dutch AI firm did announce a local general contractor had been picked to manage the project.
Riverside-based ARCO will serve as the general contractor and Director of Operations/Operating Partner Chris Patterson, who spoke at the meeting, said they already subcontracted with five local companies.
Nebius has applied for Chapter 100 Bonds, a statewide economic-development tool in Missouri that allows for the issuance of Industrial Revenue Bonds, to fund the $150.6-billion project.
If the Independence City Council approves, which is the only remaining hurdle before Nebius could proceed, it would result in a $6.6-billion tax abatement, but city officials said the PILOT fees, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes, from the project make it a slam dunk.
Nebius is projected to pay $651 million in PILOT fees over the first 20 years in operations, providing more than $30 million annually to a general fund that averages roughly $85 million.
That’s money that can be used for better roads, improved parks, more staff to improve city services, and restoring programs that have been cut, like bus routes.
Engel has heard those promises, but she needs more — or better — answers to understand why the city is entertaining the project. She also said they’re paying close attention with mayoral and council elections on the horizon in April.
“If the current (city council) members aren’t going to listen to us, we're going to take notice and we'll show up at the polls,” Engel said.
After Monday’s public hearing, the City Council is expected to hear more March 2 on Nebius’ tax-incentive application, and possibly vote on it.
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