County economic development officials look to data centers for growth

Economic Development Sedalia-Pettis County recently joined a coalition aimed at attracting more data centers to Missouri.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce recently founded the Missouri Coalition for Data Centers in an effort to help the state contend for businesses in the rapidly growing global industry.

Tracy King, chamber director of taxation and fiscal affairs, said in a chamber release that the nearly $100 billion international industry is growing at an annual rate of more than 8 percent, but a lack of available state tax incentives has put Missouri at a disadvantage in the competition for those businesses.

Linda Christle, executive director of EDSPC, jumped at the chance to join the coalition. She said data centers are part of an important industry that has been difficult to attract without incentives available to businesses in other industries.

“It (the coalition) immediately piqued my interest because it is talking about imposing state incentives in a sector I’d really like to see developed,” Christle said.

While data centers can bring a significant amount of good jobs, they typically lease facilities and do not make as large of initial investments as businesses in other industries, such as manufacturing, Christle said. Without the substantial initial investments, most data centers do not qualify for state tax incentive or abatement programs.

“We just really couldn’t do anything without the appropriate legislation. The thresholds were just too high,” Christle said.

She said increasing the tools for attracting data centers could help diversify the area’s manufacturing-heavy economy, creating good-paying jobs with benefits and flexible hours that would be ideal for students or people that work another job.

“It’s technology and running computers, but it’s not necessarily just for engineers or scientists,” Christle said. “It’s a good alternative to a job working on your feet all day.”

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce estimated if Missouri could compete for 4 percent of the growing industry, the state could attract $1.1 billion in private investment for construction, $700 million for equipment, 400 to 600 permanent jobs with an annual wage of more than $50,000 and more than 3,000 temporary construction jobs over three years.

King said many data centers are bypassing Missouri in favor of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Oklahoma, which each offer varying sales tax exemptions for things like computers, electricity and capital investment.

The Coalition for Data Centers is asking the state Legislature to extend similar incentives on machinery, equipment and power use as well as establishing a mechanism to simplify the process for obtaining personal property tax exemption.