The data center investment conversation in the United States has been dominated by a short list of primary markets: Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Chicago, and Dallas. But the infrastructure fundamentals that made those markets attractive are under pressure. Power queues stretch to three years. Land costs have repriced sharply. Community opposition is hardening. For edge and inference data center developers, the economics of secondary Midwest markets are starting to look very different.
Logan Freeman, founder of Kansas City-based Midwest CRE Advisors, is one of the few commercial real estate brokers operating at the intersection of data center site selection, stranded power identification, and brownfield industrial conversion across the region. His read on Kansas City and Oklahoma City is specific and grounded in active deals in both markets.
Kansas City: Proof of Concept Is Already There
Freeman opens the Kansas City case with a signal most people are overlooking. The city recently tightened its data center zoning ordinance in response to development pressure. “Cities don’t restrict something that isn’t happening,” he says. That regulatory move indicates meaningful hyperscale activity is already underway, and edge and inference deployment tends to follow large campuses.
The infrastructure case rests on three overlapping factors. First, utility provider Evergy’s transmission footprint connects the market to Southwest Power Pool generation, including cheap wind power that matters for operators with renewable energy procurement commitments. Second, Kansas City has a substantial stock of legacy telecom central offices, hardened buildings with existing power, conditioned space, and fiber already in the ground. Third, the urban core and inner suburbs contain brownfield industrial sites where power infrastructure remains live after the original tenants vacated.
Meta’s billion-dollar campus in North Kansas City is online. Port KC recently authorized up to $100 billion in revenue bonds for a 379-acre, six-building data center development starting construction this year. The hyperscale layer is being built. The edge and inference layer that needs to be close to Kansas City’s population and fiber interconnection points is, in Freeman’s words, exactly the product the market is short on right now.
Oklahoma City: A Grid Story Coastal Developers Are Missing
Oklahoma City’s case is different in character but equally compelling. The core of the argument is power economics. The Southwest Power Pool balancing authority covering Oklahoma combines cheap wind generation with legacy industrial infrastructure in a way that produces some of the most competitive power cost structures in the country, meaningfully lower than Loudoun County, Phoenix, or the Chicago suburbs.
Oklahoma now has over 36 active data center projects announced or underway, but the grid is only beginning to feel that pressure. For a developer or end user who moves quickly, utility commitments, substation access, and interconnection timelines are still available that would take years longer in a saturated primary market.
Oklahoma has also passed legislation requiring large electric users to pay their own grid connection costs. That sounds like a barrier, but Freeman reads it differently. “It actually creates more transparent and faster-moving utility relationships with serious developers.” Operators who cannot meet that requirement exit the process early, leaving the field to those moving with conviction.
The specific dynamic Freeman is watching is the overlap of former oil and gas industrial sites, which carry existing electrical infrastructure, road access, and often rail or truck logistics capacity, with accelerating data center demand from operators who have identified the market but not yet locked sites.
Why the Window Is Now, Not Later
Freeman’s broader argument for both markets comes down to timing. Primary markets are saturated at the hyperscale layer. Secondary markets are in the early stages. The developers who succeed in Kansas City and Oklahoma City are the ones who have already built utility relationships or partnered with someone who has.
“You could be sitting next to a substation and still be two to three years away from power delivery if the transmission line feeding that substation is already heavily loaded,” he explains. “The developers who succeed here are the ones who already know which substations have headroom right now. That’s not a problem you solve with a broker who does one data center deal a year.”
For infrastructure developers and capital allocators evaluating where to place their next bet, both markets offer a combination of cost structure, grid access, and brownfield conversion opportunity that is not replicated at scale elsewhere. The question is whether to move before the window closes or arrive after it has.
Learn more about Midwest CRE Advisors’ team and active market approach at mwcreadvisors.com/about.
Midwest CRE Advisors is a Kansas City-based commercial real estate firm specializing in edge data center site selection, industrial outdoor storage, and traditional CRE investment across the Midwest. The firm works with infrastructure developers, investors, and landowners across Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. The views and opinions expressed herein reflect those of the individuals quoted and do not represent an endorsement of any company, product, or service mentioned. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult qualified professionals before making any investment decisions.
