Second data center set to arrive in Independence ahead of moratorium vote
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Patmos went under contract to buy the 2500 Little Blue Parkway property in March.
- The Patmos site is planned to start at 17.5 MW and could expand to 70 MW.
- The site would include six backup generators and monthly 30‑minute noise tests during.
As construction continues on a hyperscale AI data center in northeast Independence, a second company has applied to open a data center in the city.
Patmos, a technology solutions company, is under contract to buy an empty warehouse building at 2500 Little Blue Parkway from Kansas City developer NorthPoint and turn it into a data center, according to city officials, company representatives and documents obtained by The Star.
Some residents found out about the Patmos project for the first time this week when they received postcards from Patmos inviting them to a Friday town hall.
However, Patmos entered into talks with Northpoint in November 2025, Monica Brisimitzakis, Vice President of Strategic Growth at Patmos, said at a Friday town hall meeting.
The company went under contract with Northpoint to buy the property in March. The planned Patmos data center is projected to cost about $107 million to construct, according to a commercial building permit application.
“Patmos is about owning down to the dirt,” Brisimitzakis said. “We don’t lease unless it’s on a temporary basis.”
NorthPoint was also the previous owner of the 400-acre plot off of Bly Road where a $150 billion data center is under construction from Dutch AI services company Nebius.
Brisimitzakis said that Patmos has already submitted permits to the city of Independence as the company continues to finalize site purchase details with Northpoint. The company applied for a commercial permit at the site on June 2, according to city documents .
News of the project comes as the Independence City Council is considering a temporary 180-day moratorium on zoning approval for data centers.
However, Patmos is expecting that the city will approve its zoning and development permits, Brisimitzakis said, since they were already submitted before the planned council vote on a moratorium.
“This project is already in process and wouldn’t be affected by the moratorium,” Brisimitzakis said.
What is Patmos?
Founded in 2022, Patmos has data center campuses in downtown Kansas City, along with Dallas; Phoenix; San Jose, California; Newark, New Jersey; and Frankfurt, Germany. The company is not publicly traded.
Patmos made its first inroads into the Kansas City metropolitan area in 2024, when it purchased the former Kansas City Star building downtown as part of a $1 billion project. The green glass building on McGee Street is now Patmos’ headquarters and also hosts data center servers which Patmos rents to other companies, including Nebius.
The Patmos site in Independence could be used to lease server space to other AI companies in a similar way, Brisimitzakis said. Similar sets of “co-location” agreements are currently underway at Patmos sites in Dallas and Phoenix.
The Patmos project is set to benefit from a Chapter 100 bond similar to the structure currently used by Nebius, offering PILOT fees (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) to city taxing jurisdictions. However, the company expects that the property value and tax rates will increase after construction is completed, Brisimitzakis said -- and they’re planning to opt out of the Chapter 100 agreement in the future.
“We are prepared to not pursue [Chapter 100], to not keep that in place and to actually remove it,” Brisimitzakis said.
Unlike Nebius, the company has not asked city officials to sign mutual non-disclosure agreements (MNDA) and does not plan to do so going forward, Brisimitzakis said.
Two energy generation paths
The Patmos site would face at least one unique barrier to development -- power supply. While the Nebius site will be powered largely by a Nebius-funded reopening and upgrade of the Blue Valley Power Plant, supporting the additional Patmos site would require the city to vote to upgrade its power infrastructure, Independence City Councilmember Brice Stewart said.
“While the land is currently zoned correctly for a data center to be added there, the city does not currently have the power to supply it,” Stewart wrote on social media Thursday night. “For this data center to go in, the city would have to reach some type of power agreement with Patmos where they would provide their own power, and the city would accept in on our public infrastructure.”
The proposed Patmos data center in Independence, would have a starting capacity of 17.5 megawatts, with a potential expansion up to 70 megawatts, according to Second District Councilmember Brice Stewart. The Nebius data center currently under construction will start at 200 megawatts and will increase to at least 800 megawatts, with the potential of building up to 1200 megawatts over several years.
Brisimitzakis said that Patmos would prefer to buy energy directly from Independence Power & Light, the city’s municipally owned electric utility, if the project moved forward.The company would be willing to fund an upgrade to the IPL grid, as well as to buy additional power from the Southwest Power Pool, Brisimitzakis said, in order to create more energy capacity without residential rate hikes.
However, Brisimitzakis emphasized that if the city council did not issue approval for updates to the city power grid, the company “would be pursuing the self-generation route and adding fuel cells to the site.
“We have other options for self-generation…but that’s not our focus point,” Brisimitzakis said.
Either way, the site would include six backup generators, Brisimitzakis said, which would each generate 93.6 decibels of noise at a distance of 23 feet away. The site would undergo half an hour of noise level testing monthly, conducted during “normal business hours,” Brisimitzakis said.
Independence resident Rachel Gonzalez, an organizer with local groups monitoring and opposing data center construction, said that she maintains “significant concerns” about the proposed noise level, as well as potential air pollutants from the six planned backup generators.
She called on city officials to ask more questions about the project’s total electrical demand if it were to be generated on-site, as well as clarity around water use, fuel storage and delivery, and any potential future expansion to either the power infrastructure or the site in general.
“The community deserves a transparent process and confidence that any costs or impacts associated with the project will be borne by the developer,” Gonzalez said.
Construction plans and timeline
The facade of the building would not change after construction, Brisimitzakis said. Patmos would divide the open warehouse space into smaller rooms, add pipes and support infrastructure and install sound-muffling materials.
Outside of the building, Patmos would build a fenced-in area with cooling tower, the backup generators and could potentially build fuel cells if the company does not work with IPL.
Patmos has already reached agreements with Mark One Electric and Design Mechanical Inc. as electrical and mechanical contractors, respectively, Brisimizakis said. Both companies are based in the Kansas City area.
The project would also create contract roles for 24-hour on-site security and other “service contracts”, Brisimitzakis said, along with permanent roles for about 10 infrastructure engineers and a small group of senior engineer site managers.
Brisimitzakis said that since the data center would be set up in an existing building, construction work would take about five months to complete rather than several years.
The company is hoping to break ground on November 15 if it purchases energy from IPL, or on April 1, 2027 if it generates its own power on site.
Patmos representatives said they plan to host a second public meeting with residents in the coming weeks.
Independence mayor Kevin King was unavailable for comment Friday. Representatives of the Independence Guard Alliance, a data center watchdog group recently formed in the city, did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning.
