Why developers come here
Missouri has had a data center sales tax exemption on the books since 2015, sits at the seam of two grid operators, and offers industrial power at about 8.39 cents per kWh (EIA, first half of 2026). What changed in 2025 and 2026 is scale. Ameren Missouri signed binding electric service agreements for 2.2 GW of new large-load demand in a single week in February 2026, with another 1.2 GW in construction agreements behind it. On the Kansas City side, Google confirmed its $10 billion Project Mica campus in the Northland the same week, next to Meta’s operating Golden Plains campus.
The state’s utilities are the recruiters. Evergy and Ameren both lobbied for the 2025 utility law (Senate Bill 4) that created large-load tariffs, and both have used those tariffs to sign confidential contracts and justify new gas plants. Rural Montgomery County, along Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Columbia, has drawn two hyperscale campuses at once near New Florence, a town of about 700.
Land is inexpensive, interstate and fiber corridors are well developed, and the exemption has no statutory sunset.
Incentives
- Data Center Sales Tax Exemption (RSMo 144.810). A new data storage center that invests at least $25 million over up to 36 months and creates at least 10 new full-time jobs paying at least 150 percent of the county average wage can receive a 100 percent exemption from state and local sales and use tax on electricity, gas, water, telecom, and other utilities, plus machinery, equipment, and computers, for up to 15 years from conditional approval. An expanding facility needs $5 million over 12 months and 5 new jobs for up to 10 years. The Department of Economic Development caps the exemption at the projected net fiscal benefit to the state over 10 years. There is no sunset in the statute.
- Property tax. Missouri has no statewide data center property tax exemption. Local abatement is common through Chapter 100 industrial development bonds, Chapter 353 redevelopment, enhanced enterprise zones, and port authority bonds; Port KC’s bond authorization is the vehicle for Project Mica.
- Senate Bill 4 (2025). Requires investor-owned utilities to file large-load tariffs that keep “unjust or unreasonable” costs off other customer classes, allows construction work in progress recovery for new gas and nuclear plants, and defines large-load consumers at 100 MW or more, with contract requirements reported at the 75 MW level. It is contested: consumer groups call the CWIP provision a blank check, utilities call the tariffs the strongest ratepayer protection in the region.
- 2026 session. Bills to add water reporting, tighten the exemption, or pause approvals did not pass; the Missouri Independent described regulation as having “stalled” by June 2026.
Power
Missouri straddles two grid operators. Ameren Missouri (St. Louis, central and eastern Missouri) is in MISO. Evergy’s Missouri West and Missouri Metro utilities (Kansas City and the northwest) are in SPP, as is Liberty Utilities in the southwest. Large loads interconnect through the utility; anything affecting the bulk grid gets a MISO or SPP study.
The Missouri Public Service Commission approved Evergy’s large-load tariff in mid-November 2025 (75 MW threshold, premium rates above existing industrial classes) and Ameren’s on November 24, 2025 by a 4-0 vote. Ameren’s version applies at 75 MW or more, requires a minimum 12-year term, charges fees for early exit, for taking less than requested, or for less than two years’ notice, and offers subscription programs for wind, solar, and nuclear. Ameren’s contracts under the tariff require customers to pay for at least 80 percent of committed usage for 12 years and to post collateral; developers had paid Ameren $46 million in nonrefundable transmission upgrade fees by February 2026.
Generation is tightening. Ameren has approval for an 800 MW gas plant and has asked to build another at West Alton with customers paying during construction; Evergy is adding gas in Kansas and solar in Missouri, including a 400 MW solar PPA tied to Project Mica. Water use came up in St. Charles and Peculiar, mainly as a municipal supply and rate question.
Where the projects are
Two clusters. Kansas City’s Northland (Clay and Platte counties) near Interstate 435 and US 169 holds Meta’s Golden Plains campus (operating since August 2025) and Google’s Project Mica, which this site tracks. Montgomery County near New Florence hosts Google’s Project Spade (about 934 acres) and AWS’s Project Green (about 1,000 acres). A 600 MW CRG (Clayco) campus is permitted in Festus (Jefferson County), and St. Charles County saw the withdrawn Project Cumulus.
Local politics
Missouri produced one of the country’s first grassroots wins against a data center: in October 2024 the Peculiar Board of Aldermen unanimously rejected Diode Ventures’ 500-acre rezoning after a “Don’t Dump Data on Peculiar” campaign. In Festus, a $6 billion project on more than 360 acres was rezoned 6-2 in November 2025, drew a Sunshine Law lawsuit, and all four incumbents on the ballot lost in March 2026. In St. Charles, developers of Project Cumulus (440 acres, 125 diesel backup generators) withdrew before an August 19, 2026 council vote, and the city adopted a one-year moratorium. Kansas City itself amended its zoning in January 2026 to bar data centers from rural, residential, neighborhood, and retail districts without rezoning or a special use permit.
The other side is equally real. Governor Mike Kehoe calls data centers “transformative investments.” New Florence welcomed roughly 200 permanent jobs; the operating engineers’ union says it sent 200 Missourians to work on the Montgomery County sites in 2026 alone. Utilities argue that large loads paying premium rates under the new tariffs lower costs for everyone else.
What a landowner should know
Missouri deals have ranged from 360 acres (Festus) to about 1,000 acres (New Florence), generally along an interstate with an Ameren or Evergy 161 kV or 345 kV line nearby. Option agreements with confidentiality clauses are typical; the Festus lawsuit and the St. Charles withdrawal both grew from complaints about secrecy, so expect scrutiny of any local approvals.
Know which utility and which grid operator you are in; the Ameren and Evergy tariffs have similar 75 MW thresholds but different collateral and program terms. Zoning is municipal inside city limits and county-run outside them, and moratoria are now in play in St. Charles and elsewhere.
The state contact is the Missouri Department of Economic Development, which runs the exemption program; the Missouri Partnership handles site selection inquiries. Tariff dockets are at the Missouri Public Service Commission.