New Florence

• 01

  4.0/ 10

  Ameren can serve both co-located hyperscale loads on project timelines

  Meaningful but qualified

  Strong transmission proximity, but no public MW, phasing, upgrades, MISO studies, or energization dates.
  4.0/ 10
• 02

  3.5/ 10

  Both projects progress on credible buildout schedules

  Meaningful but qualified

  Local construction-permit evidence is positive; the broader permit, utility, litigation, and water record is not schedule-grade.
  3.5/ 10
• 03

  6.0/ 10

  SB 4 and developer commitments protect ratepayers

  Meaningful but qualified

  Strongest claim in the file because the policy architecture exists; still stops at plausible because the binding customer-specific economics are not public.
  6.0/ 10
• 04

  3.0/ 10

  Water sustainability holds at combined scale

  Meaningful but qualified

  Google's air-cooling statement helps Google; it does not prove Amazon's design or combined water impact. FEMA screening at the reference point identified 100-year floodplain exposure within one mile.
  3.0/ 10
• 05

  3.5/ 10

  Two GW-class loads coexist on Ameren/MISO without reliability or cost-causation problems

  Meaningful but qualified

  Controlling weak claim. Proximity is not headroom, and coexistence is not proven — coexistence requires combined coincident load, stability, voltage support, resource adequacy, transmission deliverability, and shared-upgrade economics.
  3.5/ 10
• 06

  4.0/ 10

  Projects withstand litigation, abatement controversy, and organized opposition

  Meaningful but qualified

  State and county support is visible, but Preserve Montgomery County LLC has turned opposition into litigation — politically possible, not durable.
  4.0/ 10
• 07

  5.0/ 10

  Jobs, tax base, and training benefits materialize meaningfully

  Preliminary to meaningful

  Plausible upside, but permanent jobs, wages, local hire, training deliverables, and tax allocation are not proven. Laborers and Contractors Training Center in High Hill is named in the workforce-development story.
  5.0/ 10
• 08

  5.0/ 10

  Public subsidy / abatement stack is fiscally sound

  Meaningful but qualified

  Possible public return, but not proven without abatement, PILOT, Chapter 100, and service-cost documents. Illustrative modeling shows only slightly positive net-public-benefit NPV using the known $32.5M site-prep outlay.
  5.0/ 10

1. 01

   Power timing can dominate every other schedule

   Local construction permits and site grading do not matter if the energization path slips. For a two-campus hyperscale program, the critical path is likely to run through Ameren/MISO studies, substation work, transmission upgrades, transformer lead times, and customer-backed supply arrangements.

2. 02

   Ratepayer protection and grid coexistence are related but not identical

   Missouri SB 4 and Ameren's large-load tariff tools can assign direct costs and reduce stranded-cost exposure. They do not automatically prove resource adequacy, congestion management, voltage stability, or regional network-cost treatment. The public narrative may overstate the protection if it treats 'developers pay their direct costs' as equivalent to 'no system impact.'

3. 03

   Google's water claim does not solve Amazon's water claim

   Google's advanced-air-cooling commitment is one of the stronger environmental facts in the record. But the combined site is scored as Google plus Amazon. Without Amazon's cooling design and a combined water-source / wastewater plan, the claim remains weak.

4. 04

   Litigation is a schedule driver, not just a headline risk

   Preserve Montgomery County LLC's lawsuit matters because it can affect financing, public approvals, bond closing, incentive implementation, agency caution, and construction confidence. The merits should be framed as litigation exposure rather than predetermined outcome, but the schedule risk is real.

5. 05

   Fiscal politics could become the legitimacy test

   The proposed 70% personal-property abatement is not a side issue. For a rural county, the central public question is whether the megasite produces durable net value for schools, roads, emergency services, water infrastructure, and households after tax concessions. Without a transparent fiscal model, the economic-development story remains vulnerable.

6. 06

   Capacity opacity

   The absence of campus MW is the central data gap. It affects every major feasibility factor: utility upgrades, transmission, generation, water, backup generation, air permits, fiscal return, ratepayer exposure, and schedule.

Project

New Florence Megasite — Google + Amazon co-located campuses

Stage tag

Under Construction

Location

New Florence, Montgomery County, MO · I-70 / Highway 19 interchange · ~1 hour west of St. Louis

Site

~5,000-acre rural megasite · campuses straddle I-70 (Amazon north, Google south, ~2,000 acres combined)

Google

$15B announcement (May 2026, Ruth Porat) · advanced air cooling · limited water consumption

Amazon

Reported ~$35B investment · scope and cooling design less verified

Utility / grid

Ameren Missouri · MISO regional planning environment · multiple Union Electric / Ameren transmission records and 345 kV-class corridors near New Florence

Regulatory frame

Missouri 2025 SB 4 + Ameren large-load service framework · Chapter 100-style incentive questions

Public preparation

Reported $27.5M state appropriation tied to federal COVID-recovery industrial funds + $5M Missouri DED grant to Montgomery County

Community context

Small rural host county · active opposition front (Preserve Montgomery County LLC litigation seeking to stop both builds)

Fiscal controversy

Proposed 70% Google personal-property tax abatement under consideration

Scoring arithmetic

Claim mean 4.25 → 4.3 · controlling claim 3.5 (combined firm power deliverability / grid coexistence) · cap 5.0 (does not bind)

Evidence as of

May 29, 2026

Companion reports — Power & Grid Path, Permitting & Litigation, Community Impact, and Schedule Forensics — are produced on request.