The Kansas Build

Build-Out and its Complications

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Data center projects are matters of public concern because of their sheer physical scale and economic impact. The centers themselves are heavy industrial buildings that require intensive excavation and grading, structural steel, high-voltage electrical work, switchgear installation, piping, controls, and fire suppression. On the labor front, the trades involved in making this happen are part of skilled occupations whose members enter their profession through licensing, apprenticeship, or employer training. Notably, they are the same people who will live with the data center project in their area. The construction phase of a data center project is an important early point for assessing local economic impact, but it is not the endpoint. Between all these various considerations, the challenge for local government in assessing projects is not insignificant. When processes are confusing, resentment grows.

To successfully develop projects, the public needs a process that it believes is both honest and capable of delivering on its promises. The saga of Beale Infrastructure’s De Soto project, in the Kansas City metro area, demonstrates how communities can stop assuming good faith. The first public presentation for Beale described a concept of about 1.14 million square feet that the company was careful to note was not part of its formal application. The approved plan instead reached nearly 2.9 million square feet. One resident called the change “a breach of understanding.” Another came looking for power-and-water answers and found balloon artists at the meeting.⁵ Crucially, nothing in Kansas law requires a first presentation to match its final application. Thus, the public reasonably felt it had been sold a bill of goods.

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In general, each application asks officials to judge four things: the construction work, the permanent jobs and taxes, the utility and transmission costs, and the water use. Kansas does not require one public, project-level filing that covers construction employment, permanent jobs and local tax payments, utility and transmission-upgrade costs, and projected water withdrawal and consumption.⁶ Thus, applicants disclose different figures, at different times, to different bodies. Moreover, residents have no benchmark against which to compare one offer with another, because each offer is delivered in pieces and is timed around the applicant’s own schedule. The structure of the process essentially guarantees that the public is kept confused, and approval resembles the granting of concessions.

But for any given community, the build-out of a data center can become a valuable local resource. A 2026 analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research, relying on county-level data and shift-share instruments to estimate the local effects of data-center growth, finds that build-out increases total employment, data-processing employment, short-run construction employment, local establishments, income, wages, home prices, and electricity prices. Construction employment rises strongly during the early build-out, while annual payroll responds with more mixed effects. And construction effects are strongest in the short run, while operating-phase effects vary by outcome.⁷ The paper covers 1995 through 2020 and is not Kansas-specific, but it contains important general lessons even before AI interest drove the current build-out demand to previously unseen levels. What a county buys with permission is a building boom, and what it gets afterward is a building that needs power, water, and hundreds of people to manage it.

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A jurisdiction that says yes to a data center is, in essence, approving an industrial plant. Where early construction creates an initial employment surge, the permanent jobs and taxes come over the medium and long term, accruing to the county’s benefit. Not every project is guaranteed to generate the same level of benefit, but its potential benefits can be evaluated more effectively if presented in a predictable process supported by transparent requirements that develop a common record.

A successful data center project is only as good as the surrounding industries and labor pool that support it, and this is where Kansas’s key contribution exists. Kansas is home to the skilled trades, technical colleges, applied research, and the comparatively stable power that a data center project demands. Thus, it is the path to permission, not the core industrial capacity, that is the primary constraint in these projects.

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On the labor question, Kansas has a promising pool of talent and has a pathway to growing that pool further. The median Kansas wage is $48,010.⁸ Electricians earn $65,860, a 37% premium over that median. Plumbers and pipe fitters earn $65,220, and industrial machinery mechanics earn $65,830. First-line construction supervisors make $76,780, and power-line installers reach $101,620. Kansas currently employs 6,350 electricians, 4,590 plumbers, and 7,700 industrial machinery mechanics, against a total workforce of 1,437,520.⁹ This core workforce is an important building block for new industrial projects. Moreover, the wage level and incoming demand are strong signals to the local economy to bring more applicants into the skilled worker pipeline.

To this end, the apprenticeship programs are already responding. In the Kansas City region, IBEW Local 124, has grown its first-year apprentices from 90 in 2021 to roughly 220 expected in 2026, with total apprentice membership just under 900.¹⁰ Its work estimate rose from $30 billion to $80 billion in two years.¹¹ And Laborers Local 264 reported increased demand for its members at data center job sites.¹² Between the 2024 and 2025 statewide reports, registered apprenticeships grew to 5,301 residents and 704 employers across 208 recognized occupations.¹³ The state has already made significant investments to build on this foundation. The Kansas Office of Apprenticeship was created in September 2022, and the for-profit employer credit increased to up to $2,750 after December 31, 2025.¹⁴

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The even better news on this front is that valuable technical skills necessary for supporting this industrial revolution can be acquired through relatively short credentialing programs. For example, WSU Tech shows a striking pattern across five years of awards. The shortest credential, the 16- to 29-hour Certificate A, grew from 338 to 647 awards. The 30- to 44-hour Certificate B grew from 65 to 254. Associate degrees grew from 213 to 374.¹⁵ While the 45- to 59-hour Certificate C tier sat nearly flat, moving only from 422 to 432,¹⁶ the more intensive associate degree pathway is growing rapidly. That flat middle tier provides some useful indication that students seem to be choosing either the shortest practical certificate or a full associate degree and skipping the awkward step between.

Kansas has already proven that it is highly capable of mobilizing its industrial base in support of technologically advanced industries. The prime example in this regard is aerospace. According to 2025 BLS data, aerospace product and parts manufacturing accounts for a share of Kansas private-sector employment over six times the national share.¹⁷ Wichita State reported $350.2 million in aerospace research and development in FY2024, the most in the United States, and ranked ninth overall in engineering research and development at $360.0 million, up 59% from FY2022.¹⁸ The National Institute for Aviation Research disassembles and scans retired B-1Bs into high-fidelity 3D models that the Air Force uses to evaluate repairs and structural changes before any work touches an operational airframe.¹⁹ Thus, Kansas industry has demonstrated an ability to stand up and support precision manufacturing married to applied research, performed to exacting, certified standards.

Another major advantage for Kansas in the new industrial revolution is its supply of cheap, stable power. Kansas’s preliminary average industrial retail price was 8.52 cents per kilowatt-hour in July 2026, against 9.77 cents nationally.²² The relative stability of Kansas’s energy pricing is perhaps an even larger asset than the bottom-line price. Kansas’s all-sector average retail price rose 9.72% from full-year 2016 through year-to-date October 2025, while the national figure rose 33.01%.²³ For a contract lasting as long as 17 years, stability matters more than a one-month price comparison. A developer who can price power a decade and a half out, and trust that price, is a developer who can build.

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And all of this energy affordability and stability is operating against an incredibly dynamic underlying economy. Kansas real output grew over 9% from 2019 to 2025.²⁴ Over the same years, annual-average nonfarm payroll employment grew 2.8%, and manufacturing employment grew 1.3%.²⁵ Real GDP per nonfarm payroll job rose over 6%.²⁶ Thus, the state’s economy is growing, its manufacturing base is holding strong, and real output per payroll job has risen. The underlying system works and has ample room to absorb a new industrial boom.

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In short, Kansas’s industrial and economic capacity argues for a yes to the present moment.

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The trades pay well enough to attract people, the apprenticeship engine is scaling in advance of the build, the technical colleges are concentrating their output in the shortest and deepest credentials, aerospace shows the state already builds to certified standards, applied AI amplifies licensed workers, industry can pivot with demand, power is cheap and stable, and output keeps growing. The major constraint on making Kansas the next industrial hub of the United States is regulatory permission.

Determining whether the terms of a proposed data center project are fair or desirable and whether a project should move forward is currently a challenging endeavor for county commissions and other governmental bodies. All of the information necessary to make this decision originates with the developer, including the size of the project, the water it will draw, and the jobs it claims it will create. A controversial hearing in Barber County required extra security as residents watched their commission approve a Google project of roughly 1.7 million square feet by a vote of 2 to 0, with one abstention.²⁷ The final agreement required full property taxes with no abatement and guaranteed at least 300 full-time-equivalent jobs by year five. Google separately projected up to 500 jobs. The county's own estimate put ad valorem tax revenue at $327.5 million over 20 years across local taxing jurisdictions, including $138.4 million for Barber County itself.²⁸ Although the terms of that deal reflect careful negotiations, an independent benchmark against which to judge them was not provided.

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This is the underlying reality that creates the permission problem. A missing baseline of public information leaves public bodies largely in the dark when trying to determine whether a given project represents a good bargain for a county.

The core problem that needs to be solved is how to help public bodies know what they don’t know in order for them to pose necessary questions. For example, Kansas's High Plains aquifer had a long-term average decline of 0.57 feet per year from 1996 through 2025.³⁵ The aquifer saw an average overall increase of 0.2 feet in 2025, breaking a five-year trend. However, the most heavily irrigated portion of the state, Groundwater Management District 3 still lost 0.62 feet.³⁶ A data center that plans to pull and consume water is making a claim against a resource that is under pressure, at the same time that Kansas does not require every data center to publish project-level withdrawal and consumption figures. A data center holding its own water right must report annual use, while a facility served by a public water supplier may appear only within the supplier’s water-right records.³⁷ Thus, critical questions about something as important as water use may not be answered in the same place, or even in a way that is immediately apparent to an adjudicating body.

Local authority is a critical part of the Kansas political landscape, but it must be well-informed in order to properly function. Land-use decisions most obviously belong at the county and city level, where officials answer to the people who live with the consequences. But not every locality has the same capability. For example, Lawrence had the staff to pause development and begin rewriting its code, which is a luxury of scale.³⁸ Smaller jurisdictions may be able to pause, but undertaking a new rule-making process is far more challenging given the necessary staff and associated costs. However, a small county could make do with more limited resources if it had access to standardized information.

The permitting mismatch also affects the Kansas firms that would compete to build these projects. Local electrical, mechanical, concrete, and excavation contractors are usually bidders or subcontractors rather than the applicants seeking land-use approval, but a delayed or abandoned project can still cost them time. Estimating, workforce planning, licensing, and equipment planning may begin before the work is awarded. If a moratorium or an extended approval process postpones the project, that preparation may produce no revenue. Larger contractors can spread that risk across more projects and markets. A small contractor with only a few active bids has less room to absorb it. This leads to a perverse situation where the firms best able to build the future of Kansas are the ones least able to bear the cost of navigating its permitting process.

Who Pays?

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Cost assignment for the energy needs of data centers already has a working model inside Kansas. Under the Large Load Power Service tariff, the Kansas Corporation Commission mandated on November 6, 2025, that a load of 75 megawatts or more triggers a minimum 12-year contract and a monthly minimum bill calculated at 80% of reserved capacity. The tariff adds collateral of up to two years of minimum bills, a termination charge, and direct payment for customer-only upgrades.⁴⁶ The design intent is explicitly aimed at making sure that existing customers do not subsidize the new load.⁴⁷ There is a limitation to the tariff, however, insofar as regional network upgrades fall to SPP and FERC. This means that no single state order can settle the full allocation question.⁴⁸

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Beyond the Large Load Power Service tariff, the background settled law demands that the beneficiary pays.⁴⁹ A federal large-load rule should therefore identify the measurable beneficiaries before regional costs enter the queue. By first identifying the beneficiaries, the beneficiary tracking guarantees equitable payments, instead of letting the largest load bargain its way to the cheapest connection at someone else’s expense.⁵⁰

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How do we turn the lights on and keep them on?

Cost assignment does not settle the generation question. Evergy’s 2026 Kansas Central resource plan identifies a 910-megawatt simple-cycle gas turbine as its main near-term addition, alongside 300 megawatts of solar and 300 megawatts of storage.⁵³ The plan outlines intentions but also demonstrates why ongoing disclosure requirements would be useful. A community cannot evaluate what it is buying if the generation behind its new data center is opaque until the turbines spin.

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The public return should also be measurable. SB 98 grants qualifying data centers a 20-year sales-tax exemption if they invest at least $250 million and create 20 Kansas jobs, but it establishes no wage standard and provides limited public information about operating results.⁵⁴ Kansas should require annual disclosure of capital investment, construction and permanent employment, wages, state and local tax payments, electricity demand, and water use. Lawmakers should condition eligibility for state incentives, in part, on verified workforce commitments, including participation in registered-apprenticeship programs, prevailing wages during construction, and public reporting of local hiring results. Kansas has used performance-based incentives for other large projects, including Panasonic.⁵⁵

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Who will help make this happen?

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The trades will need to be treated as a critical component of these projects. Kansas employs 6,350 electricians and 1,610 power-line installers, while Evergy reports a pipeline above 10 gigawatts across its Kansas and Missouri territory, much of it uncommitted and expected after 2030.⁵⁶ Workforce capacity is, therefore, an important planning issue. To build the necessary workforce pipeline, the state should look into funding apprenticeships on a stable basis, helping technical colleges buy equipment, and supporting trade pathways before high school graduation. A good model for this is the Kansas Promise Scholarship, which served 2,746 recipients in academic year 2025, and 1,298 completed programs, including 407 completions in advanced manufacturing and building trades.⁵⁷

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Inventive design in state programs should encourage employer-led training. A 2026 study covering programs in 18 states found that training grants were more common where firms faced a greater risk that competitors would hire away their trained workers.⁵⁸ Participating firms showed sustained employment growth and opened more positions to workers with lower formal skill requirements.⁵⁹ The study suggested that grants, therefore, can address employers’ reluctance to fund training when poaching is a threat.

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