MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Missouri — This rural county 80 miles west of St. Louis has been in decline for years, losing residents and jobs. The biggest economic boosts in a decade or so have been a shingle manufacturer and a potato chip factory.

So when a developer was looking for a place to build a data center for Amazon, elected officials here struck a deal.

“We have less retail. We have less people. And the population is aging,” said Doug Lensing, commissioner for the county’s second district.

“Something like this is needed,” he said.

Now the details of that deal — and what it offers both to the county and to Amazon — are revealed in documents connected to a new lawsuit opponents filed to stop the data center:

County officials have promised Amazon as much as nearly $1 billion in tax breaks.

But the facility could produce, over the life of the 25-year lease, as much as $1.5 billion in tax revenues to Montgomery County schools, agencies and governments.

About a dozen massive data centers have been pitched in recent months to county and city governments from Foristell to Granite City. Residents have packed council meetings in opposition, worried about energy, water and noise, and complaining about missing details and secret deals.

The Montgomery County documents offer the first glimpse into the finances of this new wave of development, showing everything from tax breaks for Amazon to sound regulations and road improvements for the county.

Experts who track the industry say the deals can target small towns who need the cash.

“Rural communities are trying to figure this out because it has become an opportunity to redress some of the economic gaps that they’ve had to handle over the years,” said Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

Amazon did not make anyone available for an interview for this story.

Critics are fired up.

“Does Amazon really even need this tax abatement?” Steve Jeffery, a Chesterfield lawyer hired by Montgomery County residents, said at a recent meeting.

The suit, filed last week, looks to void the county commissioners' approval and block further action.

How the tax dollars break out

Montgomery County's current annual budget is about $11 million; the local school district's is $16 million.

Advocates and officials say the Amazon project would provide a “quantum leap” in tax revenues.

The deal offers Amazon abatements in personal property taxes — for items like computer servers and processors — ranging from $244 million to $982 million in local tax revenue over the 25-year lease, according to an official cost-benefit plan prepared for the county by Gilmore Bell, a public finance law firm.

But Amazon would still pay $75 million to $309 million over that period in "payments in lieu of taxes," plus another $327 million to $1.554 billion in real property taxes.

“Everyone that lives in our school district boundaries is going to receive benefits from that,” said Dave Teeter, commissioner for the county's first district and a retired educator.

Other Montgomery County employers, he said, aren't generating tax revenues “anywhere close” to what data centers could bring in.

Amazon must also meet criteria or risk losing the abatements — such as creating and maintaining at least 150 full-time, permanent jobs at the project site, with an average annual wage that pays at least 150% of the county’s 2025 average, or about $85,000 per employee.

State and local officials have pitched Montgomery County as a data center home:

The state identified Montgomery County at or near the top of its list for such facilities, county commissioners said. A local economic development group touts the area as able to accommodate "any project size," with "more than 5,000 acres perfect for data centers," plus the largest electrical substation in the state.

And the three county commissioners said data centers are a business they specifically wish to target. One big reason? Robust revenues without the drawbacks of some other industrial facilities.

“It doesn’t have the stink and noise of a manufacturing facility,” said Lensing. “Frankly I believe it’s the highest amount of tax revenue that you could possibly get from something with that little of an impact.”

Experts say rural areas attract interest from large-scale data center developers for a number of reasons.

'Winner here is industry'

Kasia Tarczynska, a research analyst for Good Jobs First, a group focused on government and corporate accountability in economic development, said rural communities offer more room to accommodate the facilities. And, she said, the smaller local populations can mean less potential pushback for a project.

But, she cautioned, governments in rural areas can be so hungry for new business opportunities that they can be taken advantage of.

“The bigger winner here is the industry,” said Tarczynska. “Communities that struggle more are willing to provide more tax breaks."

That often results in those data center companies “paying just a fraction of local taxes,” she said.

“These companies are quite, quite good at extracting money from local governments,” she added. “The data center industry is the most subsidized industry I have ever seen.”

Analyses in other states, like Georgia, Virginia and Washington, show that the tax breaks can outweigh the revenue that the facilities produce, Tarczynska said.

But tax agreements aren't the only deals local governments strike in an undertaking this big.

The company set to develop the Amazon project, Kansas City-based NorthPoint Development, signed an infrastructure and funding agreement with Montgomery County and will pay for related alterations like road improvements and a railroad crossing.

The agreement also locks in place the zoning, permitting, road and sound regulations in effect when the county issues the first construction permit for the data center project. The county won't be able to change such standards or requirements for the project — or add new ones.

For many Montgomery County residents, the sales pitch for the data centers has fallen far short. Late last month, hundreds of people packed into the Montgomery County High School gym for a community meeting arranged by project opponents. A long list of speakers took turns stepping to a microphone and sharing concerns.

Many worry about the potential for such huge facilities — the Amazon center would sit on about 900 acres — to forever alter the character and identity of a rural community where many take pride in local farmland and appreciate open space. Others worry about the precedent the Amazon tax abatements might set.

They'll soon know. Montgomery County officials have a similar data center project, this time for Google, in the pipeline.

The scope of the Google facility isn't finalized, said Trystine Payfer, a Google spokeswoman focused on developing data centers in the region.

The project, she said, hinges on a financial package that is still in the works.

Steve Etcher, an economic development consultant for Overland Park, Kansas firm MarksNelson hired to help Montgomery County on the Amazon project, said it's worth leaning into the new trend.

“Change is inevitable,” said Etcher. “We need to be leading with it, not following it.”

Still, it all troubles some Montgomery County residents.

"We have a bad bargain. Amazon had a good bargain," said resident JoAnn Reagan.

And Google?

"I hope they don't get that good of a bargain," she said. "Let me tell you."

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