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and its development-ready sites affords the region more opportunity to attract not only more data centers but other high-value tech operations. “When global brands like Meta (parent of Facebook) invest in our market, other global tech enterprises start looking as well,” Cowden said. “Our project activity in this sector continues to be strong, and I don’t anticipate any slowdown, even with some macroeconomic uncertainty facing the tech industry. Kansas City is a great long-term play, and these technology companies understand this clearly.” On the manufacturing side, Cowden said that boating a marlin like Panasonic Energy will create critical mass that can help make growth in that sector self-sustaining. “It was imperative that Kansas City secure one of the established companies that is an undeniable global leader in this revolutionary economic transformation,” he said. “Panasonic’s investment in our region is the gift that keeps on giving. Other major advanced manufacturers have taken note of Panasonic’s decision, and that bodes well for our efforts to help attract them to the region.”

GOING BIG | The Golden Plains Technology Park in Kansas City’s Northland is part of a massive wave of data-center developments that will broaden the regional economy.

but an extended line still holds additional development promise. Since the streetcar began operations in 2014, Downtown has seen more than $2 billion invested across housing, leisure, hospitality, entertainment, arts, and more. Those driving the civic agenda believe that the growth will continue— and may even accelerate—when the track is completed. On the business side, the region is gaining attention from all the right places as a center of advanced manufacturing and as a market for data centers. That will

further diversify a local economy that, over the past decade, has been transformed by the logistics center and tens of millions of square feet of Class A warehousing and distribution facilities. Within that span, in fact, Amazon by itself has become one of the largest private employers in the region, with multiple distribution centers and more than 6,000 employees. At the same time, the tech sector is bursting with potential, even as the national scene has been hard-hit with layoffs over the past year. The addition of the Golden Plains Technology Park

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