Patmos Secures $100M Green Loan for AI-Ready Data Center in Kansas City Retrofit
January 13, 2026
In a significant move highlighting the convergence of sustainable finance and AI-driven infrastructure demand, Patmos Hosting has secured a $100 million clean energy loan to advance its flagship data center project in downtown Kansas City. The deal underscores a growing trend of leveraging specialized financing for energy-efficient retrofits, particularly as the industry races to build capacity for artificial intelligence workloads.
The Kansas City, Missouri-based internet infrastructure company received the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loan from PACE Loan Group. This financing will support the continued build-out of a $1 billion, 35-megawatt data center within the historic 421,000-square-foot former Kansas City Star building. Since breaking ground in late 2024, the project has progressed to offer 10 MW of operational capacity and has already secured two tenants on multi-year leases.
John Johnson, founder and CEO of Patmos, linked the financing directly to the project's strategic goals. "With this loan, Patmos is able to continue to deliver on our speed to market promise for our clients while creating an AI Campus that serves as the technology hub for one of the fastest expanding regions in the industry," he said.
The funds are earmarked for high-efficiency equipment, HVAC, and plumbing upgrades critical for data center cooling. Chief Operating Officer Joe Morgan emphasized the project's community and sustainability focus, which aligns with the C-PACE program's requirements. "We are trying to be more sustainable, and we are trying to be more of a community-driven project," Morgan told Data Center Knowledge. A key efficiency measure involves a partnership with a local chilled water provider. By utilizing this closed-loop system, Patmos can deactivate its in-building water chillers. "That’s huge because to cool a data center, especially an AI facility, can take as much as 40% of the total amount of energy used – so we’ll be able to offload almost 100% of that cooling energy," Morgan explained, noting it also eliminates the water waste typical of conventional data centers.
Notably, Patmos is targeting a specific market niche. While hyperscalers dominate headlines with gigawatt-scale builds, Patmos is focusing on sub-50 MW projects catering to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). "We’re not trying to make a deal with any of the hyperscalers," Morgan stated. "Part of our strategy is to create smaller colocation spaces to make sure that SMBs that want to be able to get into AI have the ability to do so – basically guaranteeing small businesses have the ability to be successful and compete."
The Kansas City retrofit, scheduled for completion later this year, represents a model Patmos is replicating. The company has similar brownfield redevelopment projects underway in Dallas and Phoenix and is evaluating additional sites nationwide. This approach demonstrates a viable path for expanding AI infrastructure capacity in urban cores while promoting energy efficiency and serving an underserved segment of the enterprise market.
Source: datacenterknowledge
