KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A multi-billion dollar tech center could be coming to the metro.

Kansas City’s Transportation, Infrastructure and Operations Committee approved a plan Wednesday to build the Golden Plains Technology Park in Clay and Platte counties.

The local developer, Diode Ventures, is a subsidiary of Black & Veatch in Overland Park and said the project will support the growing demand of data, cloud and other hosting services

“When you think about a 5.5 million-square-feet of data center space, it’s a pretty tremendous amount of things like equipment and services that’ll need to come from the community,” said Brad Hardin, Diode Ventures President. “And so, as we continue to push this forward it’s going to mean a lot of positive growth and positive impact for Kansas City overall.”

If the full city council approves the plan, the facility will have three data centers that will need to hire IT techs to run each facility.

The company expects this project to bring high-paying jobs to the community, from the IT techs, to construction workers and developers.

“So the data center being a step one, in terms of really looking into center us in terms of the technology, the data, the really important 21st-century development that we need here in Kansas City and that we’re going to be the leaders in,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said.

Lucas said it also will bring opportunities like internships to local schools in and out of the metro.

The tech center wouldn’t affect taxpayers, but the city wants to make sure the energy grid can handle it.

The city council will vote on this proposal on April 29. If approved, the company expects to start building later this year.