Work on Beale Infrastructure’s De Soto data center is officially underway, and much to many residents’ dismay, the project scope has nearly doubled in size since it was announced last August.
California-based Beale Infrastructure began construction in April on the 300-acre site at the northwest corner of 103rd Street and Edgerton Road, just south of Kansas Highway 10 and west of the Panasonic plant. That same month, the De Soto Planning Commission approved significant changes to the scope of the $3 billion project.
What was originally four buildings totaling 1.14 million square feet is now four buildings totaling nearly 2.9 million square feet that will house rows of computers meant for storing, processing and transmitting data.
“The initial conceptual designs presented to the city council in August 2025 were preliminary and subject to change, and not part of the formal application, which was submitted earlier this year and approved by the planning commission in April and May,” a Beale spokesperson told the Post on Tuesday.
However, De Soto resident Toni Caldwell said nearly doubling the square footage wasn’t done in good faith considering the initial project designs.
“They (Beale) are proposing a facility larger than what was originally presented,” Caldwell said at the May 7 De Soto City Council meeting. “This is a breach of understanding that they created with this community, and not to mention, the developmental agreement.”
The site, called Project Pilot, is now set for two phases.
The first phase builds a 300,000-square-foot building and a 863,000-square-foot building, expected to be completed in 2028. A timeline for the second phase is unavailable, but it will build out two more buildings, at 864,000 square feet each, bringing the new total square footage to 2.9 million square feet.
“We’re all using a data center in some way, shape or form every single day,” Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Public Affairs for Beale Infrastructure Tony Burkart said during the company’s June 18 open house. “Every time we pick up our phones or we get into bed and we watch TV — that’s all happening with the support of a data center, ideally a data center in the U.S., not overseas.”
The project has a payment in lieu of taxes agreement, tied to its square footage, meaning that the company will now pay greater fees to local taxing districts with the project’s increased scope. With the increased project size, a Beale spokesperson said, the city of De Soto will now get $163 million and United School District 232 will get $78 million. An additional $250 million will come through in sales tax on power and franchise fees.
As Beale starts its project, another developer is eyeing the community. Texas-based Digital Realty presented its plans June 4 for a 1,400-acre data center campus, just down the road from Beale’s site.
Meanwhile, since March, three other data center applications have come through in western and southern Johnson County — but all of them lost traction.
Bullock Capital and Colossus Advisors withdrew its application in Spring Hill, and Beale Infrastructure, which is heading up the De Soto data center plan, withdrew a similar proposal in Gardner, and Edgerton officials denied another application from DAMAC Digital.
Following the applications in Gardner and Edgerton, both city councils considered, and denied, moratoriums, which would’ve temporarily blocked data center applications.
Beale’s open house
With the changes approved and work underway, Beale hosted an open house June 18 at De Soto High School. Several representatives from the company were at the event, talking with and answering questions from more than 150 people who dropped by.
In an interview afterward with the Post, Burkart said water usage came up frequently in his discussions that night. Beale plans to use a closed-loop, air-cooled system to keep temperatures down in the facility, instead of evaporative or free cooling. Daily water usage at the site, he added, will be akin to that of a restaurant.
“This is a closed-loop water system, which means we fill it once,” Burkart said. “And, much like your refrigerator, that cool liquid is circulated around inside the facility, constantly, for up to 10 years before it needs to be emptied. It will then be treated before it goes back into the water treatment system. It’s refilled and it goes for another 10 years.”
The treatment process is set by local, state and federal regulations.
The goal with the event, Burkart said, was to help residents build a foundation of information to help ease concerns with things like water usage, energy consumption and sound mitigation.
From there, he added, the company hopes to have conversations about what this development can do for the community and what a partnership looks like.
“I thought it (the event) went great, actually,” Burkart said. “I was really pleased that I had multiple conversations with people, everybody was really polite, and I thought their questions were really genuine, too.”
Some residents, however, said they felt the event wasn’t what they wanted. For De Soto resident Sara VanDeCreek, the event felt more like a “publicity opportunity” than a genuine attempt to work with the community.
“We were led to believe that we would be able to ask our questions and get the answers we’re looking for,” VanDeCreek said during the June 18 city council meeting. “Instead, we got a meeting that was geared a lot toward our families and our children — there were balloon artists, there were face painters – that’s all nice and good, but didn’t serve the purpose that we need.”
VanDeCreek said she got no new information from the meeting.
From the people
Residents and people from surrounding communities continue to show up and speak out against data centers at De Soto City Council meetings, especially with the incoming application from Digital Realty.
Several people, including VanDeCreek, spoke against data centers at the June 18 meeting, following Beale’s open house.
Thursday’s meeting was no different. While only a couple of people spoke, including Caldwell, claps followed their allotted speaking time during which they asked for greater transparency and accountability from city council.
As Caldwell, who has spoken about her concerns with data centers at several previous city council meetings, addressed the city council, she asked them to keep four key principles in mind when considering all development in the city:
- think long-term and be proactive instead of reactive – development should support improving infrastructure, protecting resources and enhancing quality of life for current and future residents,
- protect existing residents and the city’s neighbors – growth shouldn’t increase financial burden on residents through higher taxes, utility or infrastructure costs,
- be transparent and accountable – residents should have easily accessible and understandable information about developments, including costs, incentives and commitments made by developers,
- and preserve the character of the community – growth, Caldwell said, should complement the city’s values, history and neighborhoods.
“I do support responsible growth and development, as I have stated many times before,” said Caldwell. “Realize every decision you make shapes the community, for our children and grandchildren, that they will inherit tomorrow.”
This story was originally published by the Johnson County Post.
