A hyperscale data center is proposed at 191st & S. Clare Rd.
Beale Infrastructure has proposed a hyperscale data center campus on the ~300-acre parcel annexed into Gardner in 2023. The site sits directly next to rural neighborhoods, family farms, and unincorporated Johnson County homes whose residents have no vote on what gets built next door. This site is a community information hub on what's being proposed, how the process is moving, and how to engage before the City Council vote.
Developer: Beale InfrastructureLocation: 191st St. & S. Clare Rd., Gardner, KSParcel: ~300 acres (Ord. 2739, 2023)
~300acres of land annexed into Gardner in 2023 under Ord. 2739
100sof megawatts of continuous electrical demand at hyperscale buildout
24 / 7cooling, lighting, security, and backup-generator testing once operational
0votes for adjacent unincorporated Johnson County residents
What it actually looks like
A hyperscale data center is heavy industry — not a tech office.
Marketing renderings make these projects look like sleek, low-profile campuses. Built and operated, they are fenced industrial sites that run around the clock, with cooling equipment, transformer yards, and rows of diesel backup generators. The photos below are illustrative — not the proposed Gardner site — but they show the operational character of facilities at this scale.
Aerial view of a hyperscale data center.
A single campus can cover hundreds of acres of windowless buildings, parking, transformer yards, and access roads.
An industrial-scale build.
Construction alone takes years and brings sustained heavy truck traffic to surrounding rural roads.
What runs inside.
Tens of thousands of servers — every one of them generating heat that must be cooled around the clock.
Photos via Unsplash. Illustrative — not photos of the proposed Gardner site.
The story behind the parcel
The land was annexed into Gardner. The neighbors weren't.
In 2023, the City of Gardner annexed the ~300-acre parcel under Ordinance 2739. Subsequent ordinances (2769, 2775, and 24-16) followed a similar pattern.
The annexation boundary was drawn to bring the agricultural land inside the city limits while leaving the surrounding rural homes outside of it. The practical result: families who live directly adjacent to the proposed data center are not Gardner residents and have no vote on the City Council decision that will determine what gets built next door.
Annexation mapOrd. 2739 boundary will be inserted here. Source: City of Gardner / Johnson County AIMS.
Annexation boundary, Ord. 2739 (2023).
An annotated map will be added once finalized. The pattern holds across the related annexations (Ord. 2769, 2775, 24-16).
What's at stake
The impacts extend far past the parcel boundary.
Each of these is covered in detail on the Concerns page with sourced figures and references. The short version:
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Water
Hyperscale facilities can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons per day. Closed-loop is a developer commitment, not a regulatory requirement.
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Power
Hundreds of MW of continuous load. Grid upgrade costs can be socialized to all ratepayers depending on tariff structure.
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Noise & light
24/7 cooling fans and generator testing. Industrial-scale lighting visible from rural neighborhoods.
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Property values
Peer-reviewed research shows declines in value for residential property near large industrial neighbors.
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Emergency response
Diesel storage, lithium-battery backup, and specialized fire-suppression chemicals raise the bar on local response capacity.
📊
Long-term precedent
M-1 industrial zoning is permanent. Approval here makes the next industrial proposal in the area harder to stop.
Want the detail?
Each of these impacts has a deeper read.
The Concerns page covers each item with citations. Myths & Facts addresses the most common claims you'll hear from developers and PR materials.
This is not just empty land
Look at what's already here.
From a developer's office in another state, the area might look like vacant farmland on a parcel map. Up close, it's surrounded by homes, family farms, schools, and small businesses.
Proposed industrial site
Proposed industrial site (illustrative)HomesSchoolsFarms
Simplified illustration of the residential context, not a survey. An annotated map of the actual parcel and surrounding properties will replace this once the official boundary and adjacent-property data are finalized.
Take Action
This decision is made by people. Tell them where you stand.
There's a Planning Commission hearing, a 14-day protest petition window, and a City Council vote ahead. Each public comment, email, and signature on a protest petition counts.
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