QTS is reportedly dropping plans to move into a new Diode Ventures’ data center park in Kansas City, Missouri.
BizJournal reports, citing sources familiar with the project, that QTS had been under contract to acquire the Rocky Branch Creek Technology Park from master developer Diode Ventures LLC, but the contract reportedly expired in late December after stakeholders determined that Evergy Inc. could not supply sufficient power to the property to meet the company's long-term needs.
"The Kansas City area has one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the US," a Diode Ventures spokesperson told BJ. "Diode Ventures has worked with Evergy on Golden Plains Technology Park and continues to make progress on the development of Rocky Branch Creek Technology Park and related infrastructure."
QTS declined to comment to BJ.
Black & Veatch subsidiary Diode Ventures last year filed a preliminary plan for the 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. QTS reportedly signed on as a potential customer at the park last year.
Diode was originally looking to develop up to nine data center buildings in Kansas City's Northland, together totaling 1.96 million square feet (182,000 sqm), but has since expanded the plans to include as many as 12 buildings totaling 4.3 million sq ft (400,400 sqm). When fully built out, Rocky Branch Creek is planned with a critical IT load of around 215 to 220MW and a full-site capacity of about 270MW.
The proposed site is close to Diode’s Golden Plains Technology Park. The 760-acre site has since been acquired by Meta, which previously has taken out large agreements with QTS in Oregon.
Diode also has plans for a third potential campus in the area; it is in the early stages of evaluating Hampton Meadows, a smaller data center site conceptualized for 30 acres it owns south of Golden Plains, between I-435 and Cookingham Drive.