An Amazon contractor has seemingly begun work on the site where the online retailer wants to place its Eugene distribution center despite a pending appeal of the company’s wetland permit.

Work trucks were visible from Oregon Route 99 on July 24; operators were seen raking and watering the property.

The Oregon Department of State Lands received a complaint of work being performed on the site two days prior, spokesperson Katrina Scotto di Carlo confirmed.

“We’re currently looking into the legal interpretation of the regulations to determine next steps,” she said.

Three Eugene women, including an environmental consultant, in May appealed the permit that would give Amazon permission to pave over wetlands. They argue the state government erred when it tentatively granted approval.

On May 1, the Department of State Lands, which has jurisdiction over wetlands in Oregon, gave Amazon contractor TC Pursuit Services — a subsidiary of Trammell Crow, which began work on the site — a notice that it intended to award a “Removal-Fill Permit” for the site where the warehouse is planned.

That notice was one of the factors the city of Eugene considered when it last month gave Amazon permits to build.

Trammell Crow has declined to comment on the Amazon project, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Liz Porter, a Eugene resident, environmental consultant and former stormwater regulator, is the lead complainant in the formal appeal of DSL’s decision. She alleged the agency did not properly vet Trammell Crow’s findings, and that Trammell Crow and Amazon didn’t meet their obligations under the permit requirements.

DSL has jurisdiction over “waters of the state,” including rivers, lakes, wetlands and more. To award a permit that allows Amazon to reduce those waters — including paving over the wetland — state officials consider nine factors, including whether there’s a public need for the development, whether the companies considered alternatives to the project, and whether they “provided all practicable mitigation” from construction and development.

State officials determined the project met the “public need” test as part of Eugene’s vision for light-industrial jobs in the Clear Lake area; that Amazon met its obligations to consider alternatives by looking at seven alternate sites and four alternate layouts and determining those options were either impractical or disturbed more wetlands; and that Amazon met its obligation to mitigate by buying wetland credits.

Porter, in her appeal, wrote Amazon fails the “public need” test because the company has not provided a concrete number of jobs it will provide, their pay, or U.S. Postal Service job losses. She also contended that the company hasn’t sufficiently studied the alternate sites and that Amazon hasn’t considered the impact it will have outside the property.

“It’s not in the public interest of the people of Oregon to cut out a third-party contractor from Amazon and make Amazon more profitable so they can run their own fleet,” Porter told the Register-Guard.

Porter described herself as more pro-wetland than “anti-Bezos,” and said she would have similar concerns if another business wanted to put this much pavement on the lot where Amazon plans to locate.

“The whole premise of the law is: Don’t touch what you don’t have to,” she said. “If a client came to me and said, ‘I want to build an 80-acre complex’ and mapped on that land was a huge amount of wetlands, I’d say, ‘You need to seam it together with some other parcels before you start building there or go back to square one and find a new piece of land.’”

Porter speculated that the distribution center‘s estimated average of 2,600 daily trips will have a negative environmental impact on the Willamette River and harm the “public health and safety” of Eugene residents, by clogging the Beltline Highway route to PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield.

While Porter lodged her formal complaint with the state, she also was frustrated with the city of Eugene for designating the Clear Lake area for industrial development in the first place. In her view, the wetland-heavy area isn’t suited for such development.

In 2017, Eugene expanded its urban growth boundary around the airport by 969 acres. City officials concluded Eugene did not have enough economic opportunity and the solution was to add 11 large industrial parcels. Nine years later, Amazon was the first company to latch onto one of those parcels.

Amazon’s permits, as well as the city’s justification for choosing the area in the first place, have labeled the wetlands around the airport “low quality” because of the lack of wildlife both on the wetlands and in Amazon Creek.

But Porter said the value of a wetland is more than that.

The land where Amazon plans to build plays an important role in catching stormwater from upstream industrial businesses that could otherwise reach the Long Tom River, which does have fish. The wetland mitigation credits Amazon bought don’t change that, she said.

The appeals went to the Oregon Office of Administrative Hearings, which provides judges who hear appeals of administrative decisions made by state agencies. The OAH hosted an “administrative pre-hearing” over the issue on July 20.

Erika Hamilton, the attorney representing the state, argued for a smaller scope, saying many of the issues complainants raised aren’t legal requirements. For example, complainants took issue with DSL not responding to the comments given against the permit in the public comment period and Hamilton said DSL isn’t required to respond to those comments.

Porter argued for a broader scope even beyond the issues raised in the current complaints. She said those complaints are incomplete because DSL has not provided her with a complete administrative record of its decision. She filed a public records request for that information in May, but DSL told her it would cost $2,335.

“The whole process was scattered and covert and didn’t give the opportunity of the public to know really what was going on,” Porter told the judge. “The way that the application went through was so piecemeal and scattered that we weren’t able to really get an idea, in an all-encompassing way, of what exactly is going on, where it’s going, and how it’s going to affect long term, this community.”

Hamilton said DSL originally treated Porter’s request as a public records request, but because of the appeal it’s now treating it as a discovery request and will provide Porter with the documents.

Administrative Law Judge Kate Triana said she would present both sides with a draft “issue list” to be discussed at the next pre-hearing on Aug. 7.

During the pre-hearing Hamilton also clarified that because appeals were filed within 15 days of the May 1 notice, DSL has not yet issued a permit. She and the Trammell Crow representative seemed to disagree whether the company currently has permission to remove the wetlands on the property.

“There isn’t a final agency action,” Hamilton said. “DSL intends to proceed to a hearing and hear all the evidence. … And following the development of the administrative record, the agency will make a permitting decision.”

“We do have a proposed order that says the permit application is approved,” said Stoel Rives attorney Reilley Keating, who is representing Trammell Crow. “That has not been challenged by TC Pursuit Services, the applicant itself. And so, there is a permit.”

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Register-Guard and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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By Alan Torres
Eugene Register-Guard / Register-Guard

The city of Eugene has issued permits for the planned Amazon distribution center on Highway 99.

According to city of Eugene permit data, the city issued permits June 18, authorizing construction, after Amazon’s contractors paid the $1.2 million in outstanding fees.

The project is an Amazon shipping and storage hub on a former grass seed farm at the corner of Highway 99 and Awbrey Lane in Eugene, just north of the Blachly-Lane Electric Co-Op building. There will be one large building for the warehouse and two parking lots: one for employees and one for delivery vans.

The permits greenlight Amazon’s plan to build the warehouse, parking lot, private roadway and loading dock.

It’s not obvious based on public documents when construction will start or how long it will last.

According to the city permit database, an inspection is scheduled for June 13, 2027. According to one of many documents obtained by the Register-Guard, Amazon’s developer, Trammel Crow, has a permit to close a lane on Highway 99 to construct the entrance to the site. That permit will expire Feb. 1, 2027.

Alisa Carroll, from Amazon’s policy communications and economic impact division, told Bethel neighborhood leader Lin Woodrich over email the 317,640-square-foot warehouse near the airport would enable same-day and next-day delivery for Amazon customers in “Eugene and the surrounding Lane County region,” create “several hundred jobs” paying an average hourly base wage of $23 per hour plus benefits.

The grass field on the corner of Highway 99 and Awbrey Lane is the site of seasonal wetlands, but regulators deemed them low quality and determined stormwater runoff would not harm Amazon Creek where it drains.

The Amazon development is the first of several the city wants to attract for the industrial-zoned area near Eugene’s airport.

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Hillsboro’s data center market ended 2025 with a 0.2 percent vacancy rate, according to a recent report, underscoring insatiable demand in the sector and constrained supply.

At year end the market had 475.4 megawatts of inventory and approximately 1 megawatt of available capacity, CBRE found. Asking rents ranged from $175 to $225 per kilowatt per month.

“Hillsboro‘s exceptionally low vacancy underscores how critical the market has become for West Coast deployments,” Haakon Weinstein, a Portland-based CBRE vice president, stated in a news release.

“Even with limited new supply last year, demand remained steady, driven by the area’s network density and access to renewable power,” Weinstein added. “With development constrained in part by the region’s urban growth boundary and power transmission limitations, availability will remain scarce, influencing both rate and land price trends.”

Hillsboro remained the seventh-largest North American data center market, led by Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Phoenix and Silicon Valley.

Locally and nationally, data center developers perhaps have run out of easy locations to build. Data center capacity under construction fell to 5,994.4 megawatts at the end of 2025, compared to 6,350.1 megawatts a year earlier.

CBRE’s report blamed “longer timelines tied to permitting, zoning approvals and securing adequate power” for the first drop in data center construction since 2020.

Weinstein said he expects to see more construction near major cities, where operators prize speed.

“As data centers progress, you’re going to see more data centers on the edge of population centers that have very low latency,” Weinstein added in an interview.

Despite demand, Hillsboro isn’t where growth is occurring nationally. Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, Raleigh, North Carolina and Denver-Boulder, Colorado, are all seeing strong growth, Weinstein said.

Oregon is prized for relatively cheap electricity, and a mix high in renewable energy. Undersea data cables come ashore at Pacific City, and the state is sandwiched by tech clusters in Seattle and Northern California.

More growth is expected in Eastern Oregon, where Amazon has bought up “huge swaths of land,” Weinstein said. Hillsboro could see more growth if an effort to expand its urban growth boundary is successful, he said.

Meanwhile, data centers face political opposition from some critics who blame the industry for sharp rises in utility bills and water usage. The Oregon Legislature this month approved a one-year moratorium on property tax incentives for new data centers.

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Amazon‘s massive PDX9 distribution center in Troutdale has sold to a San Diego-based real estate investment firm for $113.5 million.

At 857,379 square feet, the distribution center is one of the largest buildings in the Portland metro area to ever change hands, according to CBRE. It represented the seller, Clarion Partners, a major investor based in New York City.

The buyer was CIRE Equity. The California firm owns several other Oregon properties, including 829,087 square feet at 224 Logistics Park in Milwaukie, and others in Hillsboro and Eugene.

The property “is one of the most significant industrial transactions in Oregon this year — if not the largest,” CBRE’s Brett Hartzell, who along with Chris Reeves represented Clarion Partners, stated in a news release. “With few comparable assets in the region, its scale, strategic location and modern design set it apart. The long-term lease at favorable rates further enhances its value, making this a truly exceptional investment opportunity in the Portland market.”

The sale equates to $132.38 per square foot. The property, developed by Trammell Crow Co. and built by Sierra Construction Co., is part of the Troutdale Reynolds Industrial Park. Amazon’s neighbors at the former brownfield development include FedEx, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Bonneville Power Administration and NextEra Energy Resources.

“We’re certainly looking forward to working with them,” Port of Portland Development Manager Chris Damgen said of the new ownership.

The industrial park still has three undeveloped lots.

CIRE Equity did not respond to a message seeking comment. The firm operates the CIRE Real Estate Income Trust. CBRE’s news release stated that the acquisition “reflects CIRE’s ongoing commitment to strategic growth and its ability to capitalize on opportunities that deliver long-term value for investors by combining income generation with capital appreciation.”

The building is on a 73.7-acre lot and features 41-foot clear heights, ample parking and electrical resources.

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By Joseph Pisani

The Associated Press

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Amazon is bringing its climate change message to a new arena. Literally.

The company, eager to prove that it’s working to combat climate change, is paying to name a Seattle hockey stadium Climate Pledge Arena.

The new moniker is meant to recall The Climate Pledge, an initiative Amazon launched last year to push other companies to join it in being carbon neutral by 2040. The venue was previously called KeyArena and is in the midst of a major renovation.

Companies typically pay millions to name stadiums after themselves. But Amazon said its name and logo won’t appear outside the stadium.
A rendering for the arena, set to open next year, has Climate Pledge at the top in green. The word Arena is underneath in smaller blue letters. Amazon didn’t disclose how much it’s paying for the naming rights, but said it will last at least a decade.

Asked if there was better way to use its money, Amazon’s head of sustainability Kara Hurst said the company invests heavily on other climate-related projects. “It isn’t the only thing we’re doing,” she said.

The online shopping behemoth, which ships billions of items around the world on planes and trucks that guzzle gas, has been trying to highlight its greener side after employees criticized the company for not doing enough to combat climate change.

The company is using more solar and wind energy to power its businesses and ordered 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages next year. This week, it said it would spend $2 billion to fund companies or technologies that could help fight climate change.

Nonetheless, Amazon’s carbon footprint has gotten bigger. It rose 15% last year from the year before and its emissions from fossil fuels rose 18%. Amazon, however, said emissions for every item it sold fell 5%.

Amazon hopes the new name will spread the word on The Climate Pledge. And the more than 18,000 people who cram into the arena to watch a game will get a sustainability lesson at the same time.

Trash cans will be replaced with recycling bins and uneaten snacks will be composted. Natural gas is gone from the stadium and replaced with electricity. Reclaimed rainwater will be used for the ice, which Amazon proclaimed in a press release makes it the “greenest ice in the NHL.”

The arena will be the home for Seattle’s yet-to-be-named hockey team that is set to take the ice for the 2021-22 season. It will also be the home for the Seattle Storm of the WNBA and host concerts and other events.

The arena is near the Space Needle and a 20-minute walk from Amazon’s headquarters.

It’s the first time Amazon has bought naming rights for a major venue. But a theater in Las Vegas, where pop icon Britney Spears had a long-running residency, is named after Amazon-owned online shoe seller Zappos.

AP Sports writer Tim Booth contributed to this report from Seattle.

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Amazon has decided Portland is not a prime location for its second headquarters.

The Seattle-based company on Thursday released a list of 20 finalists to host HQ2, and Portland was not among them.

Portland officials in October submitted a pitch to Amazon that offered a “distributed campus” concept, including the U.S. Postal Service site that borders Old Town Chinatown. Portland’s case, coordinated by Greater Portland Inc., portrayed the city’s proximity to Seattle as an asset.

In the end, Amazon decided to look farther afield for its headquarters. No cities in neighboring states made the cut. The only finalists in the West are Los Angeles and Denver.

“In some sense, it’s not surprising,” said Janet LaBar, president and CEO of Greater Portland Inc. “I’d feel worse if Seattle was in that 20 (finalists). I don’t feel bad. There were some really good lessons at a regional level that we learned and can take with us.”

Portland, along with regional partners, was one of 238 cities to submit proposals. Amazon says it will invest more than $5 billion in HQ2, and the second headquarters will eventually be home to more than 50,000 employees.

Many of the markets Amazon is considering are in the East, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Miami and Washington, D.C.

“They’re obviously not looking for another West Coast presence,” LaBar said.

Portland is moving ahead with development of the 32-acre Broadway Corridor in Northwest Portland regardless of Amazon’s decision. Developers have until Feb. 9 to submit proposals to Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency.

The Broadway Corridor is seen as a major development opportunity in Portland’s urban core. A 2016 Framework Plan written by a city-sponsored committee envisions 3.8 million square feet of development along with parks, open space and transportation infrastructure in the Broadway Corridor. The plan calls for nearly 2.1 million square feet of residential development, including affordable housing.

The Amazon competition helped the city shape what it can offer to developers, Prosper Portland spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

“We’re proud of the proposal we put together because it reflects what we want in a development partner, what we’re willing to provide and what we’re not willing to provide,” he said.

Portland’s proposal did not include some of the deep subsidies offered by other cities.

Amazon has continued to expand in Portland even without HQ2. The company in the past three years has leased 3 million square feet of industrial space for warehouses and fulfillment centers.

The company has also expanded its office footprint since acquiring Elemental Technologies, now AWS Elemental, in 2015. Amazon recently signed a lease for 85,000 square feet of office space in the under-construction Broadway Tower, an Amazon spokeswoman confirmed.

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Amazon, one of the nation’s largest companies, is increasingly making its presence felt in the Portland area with a major industrial footprint and intriguing moves in the office and retail markets.

The company has firmly planted its flag in Oregon’s largest city, and Portland is among the hopeful applicants to host Amazon’s massive second headquarters.

What was once merely a book-selling website located in Seattle is now increasingly a physical force in local economies throughout the nation. And in Portland, Amazon’s dizzying pace of development has sent shockwaves through the industrial market, where it’s far outpacing any other client.

The company is surrounding the Portland-metro area with massive distribution facilities. Consider:

Amazon last year opened a 303,000-square-foot sortation center at Hillsboro’s Majestic Brookwood Business Park.

Last month, Amazon announced it would build a 1 million-square-foot facility on a Port of Portland parcel on North Lombard Street, with Trammell Crow Co. as developer.

In Troutdale, Amazon is building an 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center, also with Trammell Crow.

And in Salem, Capstone Partners is the developer of a 1 million-square-foot facility where Amazon will distribute large items such as gardening tools and pet food.

Individually, these large projects are a boon to the developers, contractors and subcontractors who all benefit from the retailer’s local growth spurt. Collectively, they indicate Amazon will be a major force in Oregon’s 21st-century economy, employing thousands of workers, spurring development and changing how consumers shop.

Amazon’s wave of industrial development is coming amid a constrained supply of industrial land. Much of the Portland area’s industrial land is spoken for, and Oregon’s urban growth boundaries make expansion difficult.

In comes Amazon with more than 3 million square feet of industrial development in the past two years.

“Amazon clearly is a major player in the market and is affecting the supply side,” Specht Development CEO Greg Specht said.

Amazon’s logistical strategy is designed to get packages to customers in hours, rather than days, said Tom Forte, a senior research analyst for D.A. Davidson. Amazon is gradually adding to its Prime Now service across the country.

Forte noted that Prime Now is available in New York City, where’s he’s based, but not at Stanford, where he’s currently working. Forte predicted Prime Now will spread first to major metropolitan areas, and then nearby suburbs.

“They’ll add that capability over time,” he said.

Amazon offers Prime Now in Portland, with two-hour delivery of Amazon products, groceries and local restaurant takeout. The new fulfillment centers will help Amazon promptly deliver a range of products, Forte said.

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are an important part of its Prime service, spokeswoman Ashley Robinson stated in an email message.

“There are a lot of contributing factors that go into our thought process on where to place a new fulfillment center,” she stated. “Most importantly, we want to make sure a fulfillment center is placed as close to the customer as possible to ensure we can offer a great Prime service and fast shipping speeds to customers. We also look at the workforce and we’ve found great talent in abundance in both the Salem and Portland communities.”

In some ways, Amazon is mimicking and furthering the logistics of Walmart Inc., which was known to build warehouses and retail stores in clusters.

Amazon’s strategy in recent years has been to “build first, buy second,” Forte said. In Portland, the company has done both.

Amazon bought into Portland with Elemental Technologies. Now AWS Elemental, the company was acquired by Amazon and tucked into its profitable Web Services division. Elemental has its office in the former Oregonian building at 1320 S.W. Broadway.

Amazon is rumored to be seeking additional office space in Portland. Some brokers have suggested Broadway Tower, a building now under construction that will offer 175,000 square feet of office space, would be a natural fit. The office space is represented by Kidder Mathews.

The office space at Broadway Tower is approximately 50 percent leased, said Kevin Joshi, senior vice president at Kidder Mathews. He could not disclose the tenants, he said.

Joshi said he expects the office space to be more than 90 percent occupied when Broadway Tower opens in October 2018.

Amazon is well-known for its use of nondisclosure agreements for local firms it works with, and several of its local business partners did not respond to requests for comment.

Amazon has also dipped its toe into brick-and-mortar retail sales, with the Portland-metro area again in the forefront. Amazon in 2016 chose Washington Square in Tigard for the third location of its brick-and-mortar bookstore.

Amazon recently opened a delivery center in south downtown to speed shipping to Prime customers.

Amazon also expanded its presence in Portland with its acquisition of Whole Foods. The grocery chain has eight Portland-area locations, and another in Vancouver, Washington. Amazon announced in June it would acquire Whole Foods for approximately $13.7 billion and integrate the grocer into Amazon Prime.

Portland was one of 238 cities to submit a proposal for Amazon’s second corporate headquarters by the Oct. 19 deadline. Greater Portland Inc. is leading the effort to woo Amazon. The centerpiece of Portland’s pitch is the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Postal Service property.

Yet Amazon’s needs may exceed the space available in Portland. Amazon says it wants a second headquarters equal to its base in Seattle, where the retailer has an astonishing 8.1 million square feet, spread across 33 buildings.

In total, the Portland-metro area has only 27.2 million square feet of Class A office space, with a 9.1 percent vacancy rate, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle report.

Robinson declined to comment on the HQ2 process beyond Amazon’s issued materials.

Portland’s Broadway Corridor master plan, a guiding document for development of the Postal Service site and surrounding blocks, calls for building only 582,237 square feet of office space as part of 3.8 million square feet of total development. That’s smaller than one lease Amazon confirmed in downtown Seattle earlier this month, with the company reportedly taking 722,000 square feet in Rainier Square, a skyscraper now being built.

Amazon expects to spend up to $5 billion in construction for the second headquarters, which could eventually be used by up to 50,000 employees. For Portland, that raises the question of where the employees would be housed in the metro area’s already-tight housing market. Portland had fewer than 6,000 active single-family home listings in September, according to the Regional Multiple Listing Service (RMLS).

Geographic proximity will be a major factor in Portland’s bid, for good or ill. That hasn’t stopped even cities in Washington and British Columbia from trying.

Portland will point to its burgeoning tech scene and cheaper labor pool as selling points.

“They’ve been so successful in Seattle, it’s driven up the cost of talent,” Forte said. “Now they either need to diversify or spread out.”

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Portland has some stiff competition to lure Amazon‘s second headquarters.

The Seattle-based company announced Monday it had received 238 proposals from across North America to host a second campus of the fast-growing Internet retailer. The proposals for Amazon’s HQ2 competition came from cities in 44 U.S. states, and provinces, districts and territories in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Amazon issued a request for proposals this fall for cities to host a second headquarters to rival its headquarters in Seattle, where Amazon has more than 40,000 employees and 8.1 million square feet of office space.

Greater Portland Inc. submitted a proposal to Amazon on behalf of Portland and its suburbs ahead of the Oct. 19 deadline. The proposal includes a “distributed campus” concept and space in the U.S. Postal Service site in Northwest Portland, said Janet Labar, Greater Portland’s president and CEO. Portland’s suburbs also offered certain properties, but Labar said she could not discuss those specific parcels.

“The rest of our communities who have submitted proposals through us are not at liberty to discuss specific sites,” she said.

Greater Portland’s proposal portrays the city’s proximity to Seattle as an asset.

“We are definitely owning that, because there is no way getting around that,” Labar said.

For instance, a flight between the two Northwest cities is only 20 to 30 minutes, she pointed out.

Among Portland’s challenges is a tight housing market that has resulted in rising prices for single-family homes. That’s not unique to Portland, Labar said.

“I will say, generally, most major markets have that challenge,” she said. “That’s why a regional solution is part of what’s needed here.”

Amazon is expected to winnow the contenders to a short list of serious candidates by December, before making a decision on its second headquarters in early 2018.

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Amazon has announced Trammell Crow Co. will serve as developer of a major distribution facility in Portland.

The 1 million-square-foot warehouse will be located on a parcel owned by the Port of Portland at 15000 N. Lombard St. Clarion Partners, based in New York City, is the project’s major lender.

“This is yet another example of the strong market fundamentals for industrial development in the Portland metro (area),” Steve Sieber, senior vice president with Trammell Crow Co., said in an email message.

Amazon will lease the building from Trammell Crow and Clarion, Amazon spokeswoman Ashley Robinson said in an email message.

Trammell Crow, based in Dallas, is the Portland area’s most prolific industrial developer. Last year, Trammell Crow completed a 600,000-square foot Subaru shipping facility at Gresham Vista Business Park.

Amazon’s fulfillment center adds to an existing facility in Hillsboro and recently announced centers in Troutdale and Salem. Amazon also opened a Prime Now pick-up center near Portland State University.

The Portland center will employ 1,000 workers, who will sort large items such as pet food and gardening tools, Amazon said in a news release. Combined with its other operations, Amazon will employ 3,500 workers in Oregon when all of the facilities open in 2018.

Amazon’s center in Salem is being developed by Portland-based Capstone Partners.

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Umatilla County commissioners have agreed to rezone 121 acres of fallow farmland for a major expansion of Amazon‘s data center operations in Eastern Oregon.

The online retailer is moving forward with plans to construct near Hermiston up to four data center buildings – each holding more than 200,000 square feet. The data centers would be joined by a logistics warehouse, an administrative office and an electrical substation.

The proposed parcel is a half-mile from the interchange of interstates 82 and 84. The applicant is Vadata Inc., an entity linked to Amazon.

Commissioners voted 3-0 Thursday to rezone the farmland from exclusive farm use to light industrial with a limited-use overlay. The proposed data centers would be the first in Umatilla County outside the urban growth boundary, said Brandon Seitz, an assistant planner for the county.

Amazon’s plans envision four data centers totaling 853,600 square feet, an 80,000-square-foot warehouse and logistics building, a 25,000-square-foot office building and the electrical substation. Multiple small, redundant data centers are sought to ensure reliability of its web services in the event of a utility outage or natural disaster, Jim Footh, regional development manager for Amazon Web Services, stated in a letter to county planners.

Amazon, in addition to its massive retail business, is a major provider of cloud computing services. The Seattle-based company did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The proposed data centers are part of a web of such facilities in Eastern Oregon. Amazon already has two data centers in Boardman, and one in Umatilla County. The facilities are clustered together because they must be linked by fiber cables, Footh stated. An industrial property in Pendleton, floated by county commissioners as an alternative site, is too far away for use as a data center, he added.

Seth King, a Perkins Coie attorney, represented Amazon before the Umatilla County Board of Commissioners. He told commissioners the development would bring significant economic benefits, including new jobs and tax revenue, according to county documents.

Amazon’s existing data centers provide about 40 direct jobs that pay average annual salaries of $68,000, in addition to related vendor and construction jobs. Amazon and Vadata have been working with Blue Mountain Community College to recruit qualified employees, the company stated in documents submitted to Umatilla County.

In selecting the site, Amazon sought a flat, buildable property of at least 100 acres with access to highways, King said. The development must be located near high-voltage transmission lines of 115 kilovolts or more, he added. Hermiston Generating Plant will supply power for the data centers.

The data centers also require vast amounts of water – 400 gallons per minute, Footh said in testimony – for cooling, and a way to reuse the discharged water.

Mark Morgan, Hermiston’s assistant city manager, indicated in a letter that the development will not negatively affect the city’s water supply. The data centers would draw on water allotted to the Port of Umatilla.

The interstate interchange area is already home to a major Conagra Foods facility and distribution centers for UPS and FedEx.

Amazon’s rezoning request attracted some opposition from neighbors. Dan Burnam, a farmer in the area, said the property in question was farmed most recently five to seven years ago. He questioned why he is not allowed to drill a water well on his property, but Amazon will be able to drill a well using up to 5,000 gallons per day.

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