The company developing Meta’s data center campus in Kansas City, Missouri, is looking to develop another large-scale campus nearby.
Black & Veatch subsidiary Diode Ventures filed a preliminary plan for Rocky Branch Creek Technology Park, a data center campus that would occupy 359 undeveloped acres it controls northeast of US Highway 169 and Interstate 435 in Missouri.
First reported by BizJournal, the company is looking to develop up to nine data center buildings in Kansas City's Northland, together totaling 1.96 million square feet (182,000 sqm). An existing cemetery on the property is to remain intact.
"We're, as a company, continually looking for sites and our next infrastructure projects, and I think that's where this was born out of," John Handley, project manager with Diode Ventures, told the publication.
When fully built out, Handley said Rocky Branch Creek is planned with a critical IT load of around 215 to 220MW and a full-site capacity of about 270MW. Diode hasn’t said whether the campus would start its city approval process with an interested tenant lined up.
The City Plan Commission is scheduled to consider a master-planned development rezoning request for Rocky Branch Creek June 7. Development team partners include Bell/Knott & Associates as architect, Lorax Design Group as landscape architect, and TREKK Design Group LLC in handling traffic solutions.
The proposed site is close to Diode’s Golden Plains Technology Park; the company aims to develop up to 5.5 million square feet (510,000 sqm) of data center construction with 16 buildings built in three zones across 760 acres of undeveloped land along Platte and Clay Counties
Facebook parent company Meta is the first tenant of the Golden Plains Park; the social media firm is developing a one million sq ft (92,900 sqm) facility on the site.
Diode also has plans for a third potential campus in the area; it is in early stages of evaluating Hampton Meadows, a third, smaller data center conceptualized for 30 acres it owns south of Golden Plains, between I-435 and Cookingham Drive.
Meanwhile, Google is also interested in the Northland area of Kansas City. The company acquired 236.4 acres just north from Hunt Midwest in late 2021 for a potential data center, adding to an existing 78.9 acres it bought in 2019.
