A Data Center Deep Dive

Editor’s Note: This column by SEMO REDI CEO Shad Burner originally appeared in B Magazine. 

By Shad Burner

Over the last year, SEMO REDI has fielded a number of inquiries from companies considering retail, manufacturing, distribution, and data centers projects in our region. To be clear, as of this writing, we are not aware of any active data center projects committed to the Cape Girardeau, Jackson, or Scott City area. Still, the level of interest warrants serious preparation. Our team has studied the industry, spoken with communities that already host data centers, reviewed state policy, and worked to distinguish documented facts from claims that remain unverified.

This article does not ask anyone to support or oppose a project that does not yet exist. It sets out what we know, what remains uncertain, and the standards any future proposal should have to meet.

The starting point should be equally clear: no company is entitled to local approval, public incentives, water, power, or preferential treatment. Any proposal must prove that it will protect residential ratepayers, preserve grid reliability, safeguard local water, control noise, respect neighboring property owners, and deliver benefits sufficient to justify any public support.

What Is a Data Center?

Strip away the buzzwords and a data center is a building full of computer servers, networking equipment, and the power and cooling systems needed to keep them running. Missouri has hosted data centers since at least the early 2000s, and computer rooms performing similar functions date to the 1950s. What’s changed is scale. The rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence has shifted development toward “hyperscale” campuses, facilities of 10,000 square feet or larger, some being significantly larger than this.

It’s also worth noting that while AI is increasing data center demand, this isn’t just an AI story. Hospitals rely on them for electronic health records. Banks rely on them for transaction processing. Retailers, insurance companies, schools, and local governments all depend on data centers for the everyday digital infrastructure that most of us never think about. Data is the backbone of how modern society functions and data centers are the critical infrastructure that allows it to work.

Nationally, estimates of the exact count of data centers vary, but most trackers place the U.S. total somewhere between 3,700 and 4,800 operating facilities. Missouri’s own count is hard to pin down as well, but the Department of Natural Resources puts the figure at roughly 50-90. This is an established category of infrastructure, not a new phenomenon arriving out of nowhere. There have been data centers in communities for years.

Why Are More Being Built?

While data centers have been around for a long time, demand for cloud services and AI computing has grown faster than existing capacity, and companies are building to keep up. Missouri has become an attractive location because of central geography, fiber connectivity, and access to power through utilities like Ameren and Evergy. Two of the more visible examples, Amazon’s announced $10 billion campus and Google’s $15 billion project, both in Montgomery County, are the biggest economic development projects in the history of Missouri.

The scale of these projects and their potential effects on our communities makes public scrutiny both natural and necessary. The questions raised most often concern energy, water, and sound. Therefore, our research has been primarily focused on better understanding these topics.

Addressing the Big Three Concerns

Energy. Utility cost increases are a legitimate concern, and Missouri lawmakers have already acted on it. Senate Bill 4, signed in 2025, requires large utilities to build tariff schedules specifically for high-demand customers, generally those using 75 to 100 megawatts or more, so the cost of serving them doesn’t spread across residential ratepayers. The Public Service Commission has since approved large-load tariffs for Ameren and Evergy that include multi-year minimum service commitments and exit fees, meaning a company that walks away after infrastructure is built still owes for what was promised. However, these protections do have some critics who argue the thresholds still leave room for cost-shifting. So where are we locally? While Ameren, our primary energy provider, has of course raised rates and will continue to do so to keep up with inflation, a study by the Edison Electric Institute of all major investor-owned utilities indicates that Ameren’s rates are 26% below regional and national averages, a gap they are projected to maintain with planned future rate increases.

Capacity and grid reliability require similar review. Missouri is part of MISO, the regional grid operator serving much of the Midwest, and MISO is projecting historic load growth over the next decade. Our local grid is part of this larger network of generation, distribution, and usage. A project built in another county or even another state can affect our energy capacity much the same as one built locally. The grid is also incredibly complex, with overlapping parties from MISO to utilities to regulators, parties that operate under significant regulatory oversight and financial incentives to maintain reliability. However, a strong track record is not a guarantee of future performance. Before any support for a data center project is warranted, the utility and developer should provide written, project-specific analysis showing how much power is required, what generation and transmission upgrades are necessary, who will pay for them, how residential and small-business customers will be protected, and how reliability will be maintained during peak demand.

Water. Water concerns are legitimate because cooling designs vary widely and continue to evolve. Nearly every inquiry SEMO REDI has fielded over the past year has proposed a closed-loop system, which recirculates water through sealed piping rather than relying primarily on evaporation. Our more recent requests have been for as little as a few thousand gallons a day, a fraction of what most industrial projects we evaluate require. Any actual project should disclose its expected daily and peak water use, source of supply, wastewater requirements, and contingency plans.

Sound. Communities that host operating data centers told us their most common noise complaint involved backup beepers from construction vehicles rather than cooling equipment or generators. However, data center technology isn’t uniform. Before any decisions are made about supporting a data center project, we should visit comparable operating facilities, test projected sound at property lines and nearby homes, and gain a better understanding if daytime and nighttime limits should be enforced.

The Economic Case

The economic case also deserves review. Fortunately there are several publicly available examples to consider. Two recent announcements in Missouri, the Amazon and Google projects in Montgomery County, are expected to support 4,000-5,000 construction jobs over multiple years, work for local subcontractors and tradespeople, plus an influx of workers filling area hotels and restaurants.

Taxes are often structured through traditional tax payments, as well as a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement. Under a PILOT, a company doesn’t pay the standard property tax bill for a portion of their tax liability. It negotiates a reduced payment through a partial abatement that still generates dedicated revenue for the taxing jurisdictions involved. Even at a reduced rate, these projects often become the largest property taxpayers in the county, by a lot.

In Warren County, Mo., the Crusoe data center project paid 100% of their real property taxes (buildings/land) and secured a 75% personal property (equipment) tax abatement. However, the abatement agreement still commits the company to $4 million for the City of Warrenton, $30 million for Warren County Emergency Services, $3 million for the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, and more. That’s in addition to the 100% of real property taxes and 25% of personal property taxes they already pay, which the district’s superintendent called revenue that could change the trajectory of the school for generations to come.

Other states illustrate the possible scale of these payments. In West Des Moines, Iowa, Microsoft’s property tax payments are distributed among seven local taxing bodies, including roughly $4.8 million annually to the Norwalk Community School District and nearly $3 million to the city. In Loudon County, Va., the County reduced real property tax rates nearly 30% and cut vehicle property taxes due to the influx of funds from data centers. While these examples are promising, the question for Southeast Missouri is not whether another community negotiated a good deal. Our question to answer is whether we can negotiate enforceable terms that produce a clear net benefit after incentives, infrastructure costs, public-service demands, and long-term risks are fully counted.

Looking Ahead

Claims on every side can be exaggerated, selectively presented, or repeated without context. Some sources of the most outrageous claims have even been traced to foreign actors. Our community should therefore insist on primary sources, independently verifiable data, transparent assumptions, and project-specific analysis. Supporters should not dismiss legitimate questions as fear, and opponents should not treat every possible harm as an inevitable outcome. The standard should be the same for everyone: show the evidence, disclose the tradeoffs, and put material commitments in writing.

SEMO REDI should neither recruit blindly nor reject reflexively. Each project, regardless of industry, should receive a transparent, project-specific review against clear standards. Any proposal for a data center must prove that it will protect residential ratepayers, preserve grid reliability, safeguard local water, control noise, respect neighboring property owners, and deliver benefits sufficient to justify any requested public support. If a project cannot meet those standards, it shouldn’t receive our support. If it can, we should have the confidence to move forward.