Project Harper data center, Peculiar, Missouri

Diode Ventures planned Project Harper, the Harper Road Technology Park, as a $1.5 billion data center campus on the west side of Harper Road between 203rd Street and a future 211th Street in Peculiar, in Cass County, Missouri, beside a new Evergy substation and 345 kV transmission lines. Mayor Doug Stark revealed the 504 acre project in January 2024, and site plans showed up to seven buildings of about 300,000 square feet each.

Diode executives told residents over wine slushies at the town winery in July that the campus would bring new jobs and more than $1 billion in tax revenue, most of it for the school district, while its internal documents showed it was seeking 25 year tax abatements for a data center creating about 100 jobs. Emails released under a public records request show Diode had been working with Stark and city administrator Mickey Ary since September 2023, and both men signed a nondisclosure agreement with a data center company called IPI before meeting the client. Becky Wiseman, whose land abuts the site, said Diode required neighbors to sign nondisclosure agreements to keep talking, and after visiting Meta and Google campuses in Nebraska and Iowa she described them as "Like living next to a maximum-security prison."

Chad Buck and his neighbor Vicki Howe started a Facebook page called Don't Dump Data on Peculiar that quickly passed 1,000 members, and meetings moved from City Hall to the Lions Club to fit the crowds. At a September meeting Stark told the room, "I hope everyone understands that while shooting from the hip like this, you're destroying any future development that might want to come to Peculiar," and talk of a recall petition followed, though none was formally submitted. Patti DiPardo Livergood, who lived next to the site, told the aldermen she had taken her home off the market after the data center scared off buyers.

In October 2024 the Board of Aldermen, before a standing room crowd, took out the data center definition it had earlier added to the light industrial zoning code, so data centers are no longer permitted in the city. The six member board's vote was unanimous, and Peculiar became one of the earliest documented communities in the country to defeat a data center through grassroots pushback. Diode later said it would not discuss Peculiar because there was no active application. "You're not going to stop progress," said Glenn Yoakum, who runs a farm feed store downtown. "But they should make sure it's at least a good deal for the town."