"At a time when Missouri is struggling under 10 percent
unemployment and bleak projections for Missouri’s economy, the governor
made a call for lawmakers to consider legislation to secure automotive
manufacturing jobs, due in part to the timely nature of Ford’s decision
to bring another production line to Kansas City,” said Mehan. “Another
time-critical economic opportunity is passage of legislation to incent
new job creation, specifically Missouri’s data center industry, which
could mean more than $15 billion in Missouri investment in the next
three to five years.”
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce says that the data center industry is a nearly $100 billion global
enterprise, growing at more than 8 percent annually. Over the next three
to five years, national and multinational corporations will invest $15
billion in constructing data centers. Many of these corporations will
make their site decisions in the coming months. According to the Chamber, Missouri is poised to
capture these types of technology companies due to the low cost of
power, abundant power capacity, availability of fiber, protection from
natural disasters and strong base of IT talent. <p>Supporters of the
proposal cite several pending data center projects in Columbia, Kansas
City, and Branson that hinge on passage of tax incentives that would put
Missouri on a level playing field with surrounding states that provide
similar incentives.
“Like the auto manufacturing incentives, the state would not
commit funding until hard investments have been made,” said Mehan.