Data Centers

KC LOCATION ADVANTAGES

KC AREA DATA CENTERS

DISASTER RECOVERY CAPABILITY

KC Location Advantages

The Kansas City area’s central location, robust telecommunications infrastructure, superior energy capabilities and deep IT talent pool make it ideally suited to host data intensive operations.

Fiber

Home to the newly blended Sprint/T-Mobile operations center, major AT&T regional facilities and the first city in the world to receive Google Fiber, Greater Kansas City enjoys the benefit of one of the world’s most advanced telecommunications networks. KC's geographic presence in the center of the telecommunication rights-of-way in the U.S., offers a focal point both for long-haul fiber and transcontinental fiber networks. Kansas City is the most connected region in the U.S. with 5.5M miles of fiber.

A leader in dark fiber, Unite Private Networks (UPN) built one of the largest and only employee-owned, 100% fiber network headquartered in Kansas City which provides national custom route, private LIT and dark fiber networks solutions from 10M to 100GB, wavelengths and high-bandwidth fiber internet access, Cloud Connect and connected to the 76 prominent data centers nationally, 13 in KC alone. Enterprise clients have the opportunity to utilize a custom fiber route that is 100% secure, logical and transparent to them and tailored specifically for their uptime and security directives without bandwidth constraints.

Below is a list of networks that have a presence in the Kansas City region, many of which offer 100GB speed.

Energy

An energy environment unmatched anywhere within the 48 contiguous states energizes the thriving Kansas City area economic climate. It’s an environment as rich in supply as it is affordable in price — an infrastructure prepared to support your company’s expansion, growth and visions for the future.

Like Kansas City’s telecom providers, local energy companies are industry leaders in both power reliability and customer service.

KC offers the very important advantage of protection against blackouts, which is influenced by our central location and proximity to primary and back-up energy sources. Long-term operations outages can have catastrophic impacts, and the KC region provides one of the most robust energy delivery networks in the world, along with highly developed telecom capabilities and provides a balanced portfolio of energy generation via coal, natural gas, fuel oil, wind, solar, nuclear, biogas and hydro.

Evergy, through its operating subsidiaries, provides clean, safe, reliable energy to 1.6 million customers in in 92 Missouri and Kansas counties. Evergy has over 13,000 megawatts of efficient generation assets in operation.

By combining KCP&L and Westar Energy, Inc. in 2018, Evergy established itself as a leading energy company with a mission to empower a better future. Today, half of the power supplied by Evergy comes from clean sources, creating more reliable energy with less impact to the environment. And as the industry evolves, Evergy will continue to innovate and adopt new technologies that give its customers better ways to manage their energy use.

Nearly half of the power Evergy provides to homes and businesses are now emissions-free while continually exploring ways to broaden their sustainable strategy and comply with renewable energy mandates. Their diverse energy mix results in affordable, reliable electricity generation.

Some of their other energy sources include: gas, fuel oil, wind, solar, nuclear, biogas and hydro. Utilizing these other energy sources results in a balanced portfolio that's responsive to fuel prices, environmental issues, regulatory initiatives and other factors.

Evergy is the largest provider of electricity in the Kansas City region serving more than 80% of the region's customers.

The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU), a municipal electric and water utility, began operation in 1909. Today, BPU is an industry leader locally and nationally with the largest municipal utility in the state of Kansas.

BPU serves a large area of Wyandotte County. BPU also wholesales considerable electricity to cities in Kansas and Missouri.

Talent

The Kansas City area offers one of the deepest IT talent pools in the central U.S with 1 in 10 Kansas Citians working in tech.

The pool of available labor in IT professions (over 46,000) is strong due to the concentration of financial services, telecommunications, data processing, software, and engineering firms in the Kansas City area:

Major IT degree programs at the metro's colleges and universities graduate new workforce entrants in significant numbers. Fourteen institutions award bachelor's degrees, over 400 annually, in computer and information sciences. The two largest universities (University of Kansas and University of Missouri-Kansas City) also award graduate degrees in the field. Associate's degrees awarded annually exceed 150; and certificates are also awarded in computer science by area vo-tech, career, and community colleges.

Service Providers

Kansas City offers a myriad of opportunities and the right partners to bring it all together. Kansas City metro data center service providers.

Network Opportunities

• CIO group
• 7x24
• AFCOM
• KC Tech Council

Incentives

• Electric Utilities 5-year flexible discount equivalent up to two years' free electricity; and potential competitive rate for new customers with an electric demand of 50MW or greater
• Evergy may enter into a wholesale contract with customers where Evergy purchases Renewable Energy Credits (REC's) from the wholesale market to match 100% of the customer's load; Evergy will sell the REC's to the customer at a fixed and agreed upon dollar per REC on an annual basis
• Personal Property Tax Exemption – full exemption in Kansas; Missouri communities have discretionary programs developed to reduce or eliminate tax
• Real Property Tax Abatement – strong discretionary program offered by cities
• Sales Tax Exemption – potential exemption on construction costs, equipment purchases; and in Missouri, electric, gas, water and other utilities including telecommunications and internet services
• Job Creation Incentives – potential to retain payroll withholding taxes
• Training Incentives – flexible, tailored programs are available
• Targeted sites and facilities with existing power and telecom infrastructure

For more information contact:

JILL McCARTHY
Senior Vice President, Corporate Attraction | KCADC
Email | LinkedIn
816.591.1834

ELLI HOUSTON
Vice President | KC SmartPort
Email | LinkedIn
816.579.3370