Residents gather again, push back against proposed Montgomery County data centers during town hall
MONTGOMERY CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Hundreds of people attended a townhall on Monday evening at Montgomery City Elementary School to once again voice their concerns over proposed data centers suggested for the county.
The meeting followed a contentious County Commission session last Thursday, during which dozens of residents packed the commission room to protest the project, known as Project Green.
A panel made up of the county chair, representatives from Ameren, the Greater Montgomery County Economic Council, school district and a local wastewater representative fielded questions from a crowded gymnasium on Monday evening from concerned residents.
Though a lot of questions were asked, many who attended the meeting felt the panel failed to answer them.
“They really don’t give any answers. It’s like, ‘We really don’t know,’” area resident Jan Seper said.
The meeting began with an official alleging mthat isinformation about the project had been pushed.
“I think there's a lot of information out there that's not accurate, that gets people really nervous about change in development,” Steve Etcher, of the Greater Montgomery County Economic Development Council, told ABC 17 News. "There are so many economic values this project brings. We're talking thousands of construction jobs for multiple years. We're talking hundreds of permanent jobs for our graduating students out of the local schools. We are talking tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue. We will increase the county tax revenue for taxing jurisdictions by a factor of many multiples from a factor of two in the initial phases to a factor of ten . By the time we get full buildout, what you can do then with that revenue is create this dynamic community with excellent service education systems that are just, you know, top of the line."
An Ameren representative said says no rate increase has been requested yet and while it doesn’t have an estimated watt usage, Ameren claims it is looking at what they can do to make sure the data center doesn’t affect customers.
The Missouri Public Commission recently approved an agreement -- that involved Ameren – which puts new rules on "large load customers," or large-scale operations, that use 75 megawatts or more of energy per month. This includes data centers that help train and run artificial intelligence models.
When asked about potential water usage, officials again did not have an exact number but estimated it would be close to 100,000 gallons a day.
The lack of information frustrated residents who felt like the county should not be this far ahead on the project without having all the information; which is why many in attendance called for a moratorium.
"If we try to put a moratorium in right now like you're wanting to do, and the lawsuits will fly," County Commissioner Ryan Poston told the town hall.
The Montgomery County Commission has received an administrative review confirming land approval for the proposed data centers near the I-70 and Highway 19 interchange.
Project Green is being led by NorthPoint Development LLC, a Kansas City real estate company. Steve Etcher with the Greater Montgomery County Economic Development Council said Amazon plans to build a data center just north of I-70 between New Florence and High Hill.
The project would cover about 1,000 acres and include four initial buildings, with 13 more planned in a second phase. Power would come from Ameren under its new “large load tariff” model, and water service would come from the Montgomery County Public Water District.
While the Amazon project has received the bulk of the attention, a separate proposal, Project Spade, comes from a New York–based company, Spade Property Owner LLC. That data center campus would cover about 780 acres and include three primary buildings, each exceeding 1 million square feet. Plans also call for a security station, a visitor center with parking, a pump house and a water-filtration building.
Building permits have not yet been secured, according to the County Commission. The next step in the process is the purchase of the land.
Test wells have already been drilled in the county with officials hoping to break ground on the data center in early 2026.
"I would hope that we could see some activities on power line and power infrastructure being built in January, side grading shortly thereafter, and building construction as soon as weather permits," Etcher said. "There's a lot of due diligence making sure all the environmental impacts are addressed, making sure we've got the right amount of due diligence on our water systems, on our wastewater systems, doing the financial modeling, on the tax revenue. That's all part of the due diligence, then executing the agreements with the power provider. Until that is done without power, these projects don't exist."
