Ball Corporation, Timberlab, ATI and Gordon Truck Centers are pouring a combined $500 million, at least, to build manufacturing plants and other facilities in Millersburg.

That’s the kind of economic development any city would love. Large employers bring jobs and an expanded tax base, among other benefits.

In a city of 3,000-plus like Millersburg, slightly north of Albany, those numbers make a major impact.

While some governments get “caught up in red tape and rule books” that make development difficult, Linn County Commissioner Roger Nyquist said, Millersburg city leaders welcome businesses.

“How can we get to yes for you on this?” Nyquist said.

Millersburg’s low taxes, large tracts of developable land and easy access to Interstate 5 and rail service have made it popular for businesses. Few cities along Oregon’s predominant north-south freeway have experienced Millersburg’s level of industrial growth.

“What the difference is that attitude is from our council,” former City Manager Kevin Kreitman said. “I will tell you that historically Millersburg has always had a council that understands the value of the industrial base and protecting that industrial base and growing that base for the benefit of the community.”

Impetus for incorporation

The town was established as Millers Station in 1871, when a rail station was built for the Southern Pacific Railroad. It became a large shipping point for cattle in the 1880s and renamed Millersburg around 1900.

The U.S. Bureau of Mines established a facility to produce zirconium there in the 1940s. That plant was later sold to Wah Chang for production of metals including hafnium, tantalum and niobium. In the 1980s, it became a Superfund site; the environmental cleanup took 20 years.

In 1952, the Willamette Kraft Corporation built a paper mill to process wood chips into kraft paper. When it was owned by Weyerhaeuser, the plant was known for a smell reminiscent of rotting cabbage that greeted people driving by it on I-5.

“That was the smell of money, man,” Nyquist said.

Millersburg incorporated as a city in 1974, partially so businesses and residents could avoid being annexed into Albany and pay that city’s higher property taxes.

About a third of the city’s land was designated for residential development, which left lots of room for commercial growth.

A substantial hole to fill

The paper mill closed for good in 2009 and cost 270 workers their jobs. Three years later, the mill’s owner, then International Paper, tore it down.

At the time of its closure, the mill’s property tax bill was about $2.6 million annually — the most in Linn County.

“We lost a lot of jobs,” Millersburg Mayor Scott Cowan said. “And so that was a big impact, and then of course as that sort of was the immediate situation once that news got out was of course the financial impact to the city was by the franchise fees and taxes from the IP property. We felt that.”

The loss of that revenue was significant to the taxing districts — officials had to find ways to replace the revenue to pay for city services and road repairs, for example.

Millersburg didn’t levy property tax for its first 40 years because the city earned enough money from franchise fees to pay for basic city services. Now the city charges the maximum $3.50 per $1,000 of assessed value. Most of that goes to contracted fire and sheriff’s services.

The city tried to attract businesses to fill the gap left by International Paper.

In 2008, Peak Sun Silicon broke ground on a 10,000-square-foot building where it would employ 500 people to produce an ingredient in solar cells. The state foreclosed on the property when Peak Sun defaulted on a $14 million loan in 2012.

In 2019, the state gave Linn County $25 million to build an intermodal facility on a portion of the former International Paper property. That project cost $35 million, but operations never began.

Renewed interest in development

When Timberlab was looking to build a new facility to manufacture mass timber, the company considered multiple Willamette Valley locations, including Independence and Corvallis, President Chris Evans said.

Then Timberlab found a 33.5-acre site in Millersburg. The location had challenges. It had a fish bearing stream, needed an entry road and the main connecting road to Old Salem Highway was under construction.

Nevertheless, Timberlab purchased the land from the city and expects to complete its first building this year. That project will bring an estimated 100 jobs to Millersburg.

Gov. Tina Kotek, present when ground was broken in March 2025, said Oregon is “leading the way” in mass timber and pointed to the new roof at the Portland International Airport terminal.

“The city really facilitated taking a lot of the issues out of the sites here, so they could invite somebody into the community and have a quicker turnaround to have something rezoned from agricultural to industrial,” Evans said at the ground-breaking event.

That will include a 185,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Timberlab has plans for 85,000-square-foot and 126,000-square-foot buildings in the future.

Companies that build in Millersburg reap the same tax rewards as its citizens.

Property owners in Millersburg pay a combined tax rate of 15.61 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, one of the lowest rates in the state for a city that offers the services that Millersburg does.

A company building a $100 million facility can save over $1 million per year on property taxes compared to other cities if it builds in Millersburg.

The money brought in from taxes and fees also means residents don’t have to worry about being barraged with bonds and levies from the city.

“But don’t worry,” city manager Janelle Booth said. “Our residents still complain about our taxes.”

Companies like Timberlab also get a tax break by building in enterprise zones — areas designated for large-scale industrial development by the state.

Enterprise zone projects must meet requirements including a minimum investment cost and employee count. Also, workers must be paid between 130 and 150 percent of the county’s average wage.

Businesses are exempt from paying property taxes on capital improvements for three to five years. In a rural enterprise zone, such as the one in Millersburg, businesses could be exempt from paying taxes on those improvements for up to 15 years.

In the meantime, the city will still benefit from the Timberlab development as it collects franchise fees from the company. Millersburg received nearly $1.2 million per year from Pacific Power last year, and that will go up with more power being used by Timberlab and Ball Corporation.

That money pays for basic city services like roads, parks and city administration.

“We’re looking at it for that long-term benefit, too,” Booth said.

The value of incentives

Millersburg has invested heavily in infrastructure that benefits residents and businesses. The city shares water filtration and wastewater treatment facilities with Albany.

Pacific Power owns and runs a regional operations center in the southern part of the city.

Millersburg city leaders convinced Pacific Power to build a new substation on Conser Road across the street from the Jefferson Fire Department station in 2024. That provides large industrial users with plenty of electricity for whatever they plan to build.

Several large parcels inside the city limits were zoned industrial and never developed. Over the years, Millersburg acquired several of those parcels for free or close to it.

To spur economic development, the city took an active approach in marketing the industrial properties.

The city updated its comprehensive plan in 2020, which essentially served as a sales brochure for prospective development.

“That’s an incentive that we can have with the industries to encourage them to come in,” Kreitman said. “We went through and we put together a presentation, and the state asked us to come and talk about it for other communities to look at. It’s really helped us.”

The city council opted to be selective in which companies it would sell properties to. For example, the city chose not to sell land for warehouses that employ few people.

“As the property owner, the price of the property is one of our tools to get what we want in here,” Booth said.

The city still owns about 70 acres of flat, undeveloped land that is zoned for industrial use.

Dormant site could be awakened

Cowan said Ball Corporation’s plans to build a plant helped spur much of the new economic development in the city.

“We heard about another company that was interested, but it was a lot of this loose interest and no one really serious until Ball came along,” Cowan said. “That really was a big one.”

Ball Corporation’s facility could be larger than 500,000 square feet when it’s finished, according to city planning documents, but will be smaller to start, Kreitman said.

It is unclear how many jobs the Ball facility will provide once it’s finished. The company did not respond to requests for comments.

Center Market is planning a new 5,200-square-foot building for its store and offices. Pure Energy is adding a 7,480-square-foot building.

Several businesses have announced plans for the former International Paper property.

Aymium, formerly known as National Carbon Technologies, in 2022 signed a 16-year lease for construction of a plant that uses carbon products to produce things like filters. Linn County approved a pause in that lease in 2025.

“And if they don’t go forward, we’ve got, guess what, flat land available at a reasonable price in close proximity to I-5 and rail,” Nyquist said.

In 2024, Omni Energy agreed to lease the site to transfer biodiesel from trains to trucks. That still hasn’t happened.

“It’s going to take some infrastructure investment,” Nyquist said. “The operators want to work out a longer-term lease to justify that investment, and so that’s what we’re working on today.”

Corvallis-based Samaritan Health Services owns a 2.3-acre plot in the north part of the city at the intersection of Old Salem Highway and the I-5 interchange. The nonprofit planned to build a regional medical center when it purchased the property for $1 million, according to city documents.

“While we do not have definitive plans for that property at this time, we do consider it a very important asset that can help us meet community health needs as Millersburg and surrounding areas continue to grow,” stated Larissa Balzer, Samaritan Health Services vice president of strategy and planning.

Hoping for a downtown and more

While Millersburg has a lot of industrial development, it lacks commercial businesses. Humpty’s Dump Bar & Grill and Oregon Barbecue Company are among the few commercial properties in town.

The Love’s Travel Stop that opened in 2018 near the North Millersburg exit is the city’s most recent commercial development.

The city owns about 8 acres along Old Salem Highway between the new fire station, which the city built for $5 million in 2023, and Center Market. The site is designated for commercial development.

Unlike many small Oregon cities, Millersburg doesn’t have a downtown.

“We’re hoping to create one,” Booth said.

The city also lacks affordable housing. The only houses for sale in Millersburg are listed for over $500,000. There are no apartments or multifamily housing.

“That is the constant feedback we hear from our community and our council and our planning commission, 10,000-square-foot lots is the hill to die on for our folks,” Booth said.

Significant housing growth occurred in the city until 2023, when construction advanced on the last parcel of developable land within city limits. City leaders say they can’t expand the urban growth boundary to the north or west because of the prime farmland in those areas.

The city is looking to expand east of I-5 at a long-hoped-for new interchange for more commercial and high-density residential growth.

Millersburg also owns land it intends to use for a YMCA building and a school, something the city hasn’t had since the last one closed in 1983.

“Last we knew, they are very interested in getting something in here,” Booth said.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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Not quite a year after implementing a new enterprise zone to spur industrial business growth, the city of Beaverton is looking to build upon that.

City officials say they have successfully expanded the enterprise zone from 1.5 square miles to 4.5 square miles. The expansion includes 0.64 square miles of unincorporated Washington County land that, under a consent agreement, enables companies slightly outside of city limits to take advantage of the zone.

Alma Flores, economic development manager for the city of Beaverton, said the increase was driven by demand.

“There were several inquiries made for the enterprise zone from companies, developers and property owners that were just outside the enterprise zone,” Flores said. “When we started it, it was mainly for the industrial areas. We had not looked at mixed-use areas.”

Beaverton’s original focus for the enterprise zone, Flores said, was on spurring expansions that would generate more manufacturing jobs. But as it turned out, software companies and office users were interested, too.

Enterprise zones are designed to encourage business investment through property tax relief. The tool provides 100 percent property tax abatement for three to five years to eligible businesses that commit to spending at least $1 million on new development.

Flores said the procedure for expanding an enterprise zone is intensive, so staffers are hoping that a large expansion will save them from having to revisit the process. The other benefit is that many of the areas brought into the zone also are in urban renewal areas.

“This incentive, if used, would actually (encourage) future investment,” Flores said. “So with that investment, after three to five years – which is about the time you start seeing some increment happening and money for infrastructure projects – the idea, the strategy is to use this tool to incent development and business growth, which would then provide greater tax increment for urban renewal down the road.”

Flores said the areas brought into the enterprise zone haven’t seen much construction activity in recent years. With the expansion, more than 1,300 companies could potentially benefit.

The city also approved its second application for enterprise zone benefits to Vanguard EMS, an electronic manufacturing services supplier that serves the medical, defense and industrial markets. Vanguard recently acquired a 76,000-square-foot building at 3725 S.W. Hocken Ave., where it plans to relocate after a $1.9 million renovation. The company, which has 144 people on its payroll, anticipates the move will enable it to hire 15 more.

“The purpose of enterprise zones is really to spark that investment, give it a little bit of a push,” Flores said, “and then at the end when it comes back into the coffers, it’s at a higher base.”

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Beaverton‘s newly created enterprise zone is starting to payoff.

This week, the city approved its first enterprise zone application. The request came from Vernier Software & Technology, a Beaverton-based manufacturer of school-oriented scientific software, which plans to invest $2.8 million to expand its current facility at 13979 S.W. Millikan Way.

Jim McBride, IT director and facilities manager for Vernier, said the nearly 32-year-old company has been steadily growing and was running out of room at its current 30,000-square-foot office and production site. The company considered relocating to other, larger locations or separating its operations amongst several different buildings.

“We realized we could be encouraged to stay put and add onto what we have and make more room for more employees,” McBride said. “We have about 90 people and (a requirement of the enterprise zone) is to add 10 percent, and so we can easily do that and may even do more.”

Approved in by the state in July of this year, Beaverton’s enterprise zone provides property tax abatements for eligible businesses on new development. Alma Flores, economic development manager for the city, said in a prepared statement that if the success of other neighboring cities’ enterprise zones is any indication, Vernier should be the first of many businesses to take advantage of Beaverton’s.

Vernier’s expansion will include the construction of 16,000-square-feet of office, classroom and exercise space. Novak Architecture Inc. is Vernier’s architect and McBride said the project would likely be going out to bid sometime in the next 45 days.

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Since 1986, the North Portland enterprise zone has led to industrial investments totaling more than a billion dollars, according to officials. Now, the PDC, the local sponsor of the state program, is looking to build on that success.

The agency has proposed implementing an enterprise zone in East Portland, between Northeast Airport Way and Milwaukie and between Southeast Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Gresham. Industrial firms within the boundaries would not pay any property taxes on new investments, such as expansions or new facilities, for five years.

The tax abatement has long been desired by businesses wanting to develop in East Portland and should lead to much-needed economic growth, according to Corky Collier, executive director of the , which represents businesses there.

“It’s kind of frustrating when I’ve got a business that wants to do some expansion, but they’re just outside the enterprise zone; they would be much bigger if they were in the zone right now,” he said. “We need those expansions to get more people working. … East Portland suffers from a lack of economic development.”

The PDC has been waiting for an opportunity to help stimulate economic growth in the area, PDC program manager Andy Reed said. The Oregon Legislature earlier this year passed a bill to increase the number of enterprise zones that could be designated. Presently, there are 60 enterprise zones across the state, including in Milwaukie and Gresham.

“The (existing) zone already covers vast majority of industrial property in the (east) metro area, and this is filling in one of those final gaps,” Reed said.

The PDC believes the proposed enterprise zone could experience success similar to the one in North Portland, where 50 businesses have participated. Many of those businesses moved to the area solely because of the program, according to Reed. One of them is , a California-based alternative energy company. It plans to build a $340 million solar plant in the Rivergate Industrial District; hundreds of jobs are expected to be created.

Some of the businesses already in the area, such as the United Parcel Service and Banfield Pet Hospital, took advantage of the program to expand operations.

Five companies have already shown interest in participating in an East Portland program if it were established, Reed said.

“There’s just been so much success on the north, northeast side of things,” he said. “People live more or less near their jobs, so as the low-income population moves east, if we can produce business growth and expand out there, then we’re all for that.”

Residents could benefit from some of the program participation requirements. For instance, businesses must invest 15 percent of their program savings in micro-enterprise development and workforce training for area residents.

But effectiveness of government-sponsored economic growth programs, such as urban renewal, often is questioned by residents, according to Tom Griffin-Valade, director of . The organization is unsure which construction projects in the area have resulted from the enterprise zone program, he said.

However, unlike some urban renewal areas, enterprise zones have been proven to work, Collier said.

“Why wouldn’t we want to implement them if we can?” he said. “How do you get more jobs? You have more money flowing and economic development, and so that’s what the zone is all about.”

A proposal for the zone went before City Council on Thursday and today will be sent to the state for consideration. Review is expected to last a month, Reed said.

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A quarter century of enterprise zones

Enterprise zones have been around in Oregon for 25 years. Currently there are 59 enterprise zones in Oregon, including 12 in urban areas.

To create an enterprise zone, a city, county or regional economic development group must fill out an application that outlines the amount of industrial space in the proposed zone, as well as the demographics and available workforce in the area. Once the application is approved by the Oregon Business Development Commission, the zone takes effect with a 10-year lifespan.

Property taxes are frozen for all industrial businesses within the zone, or new ones that move in. Then, whenever companies construct a building, expand an existing building or upgrade equipment, they are exempt from paying additional property taxes on the additions. The exemption lasts five years.

“It’s one of Oregon’s most effective tax-incentive programs,” said Arthur Fish, incentives coordinator for Business Oregon, the state-run business development department. “It’s a big help to capital-heavy industrial businesses (such as those in manufacturing, distribution and research, or development), with much less of a hindrance on taxing districts than other programs.”

In 1988, the city of Redmond tapped into a relatively new program to create an enterprise zone to attract industrial businesses. City officials say the zone has since created 1,722 jobs and brought $124.6 million in capital improvements to the Central Oregon community of 25,000 people.

Twenty-six miles away, however, a similar enterprise zone created 10 years ago in Madras has failed to lure a single company or project.

The cities’ experiences reveal what economic development experts say is the biggest factor that can make or break the success of an enterprise zone.

An enterprise zone is a tool that Oregon cities and counties use to attract industrial businesses. Tax incentives are offered to companies that build new facilities or install new equipment in the specific area.

The most basic formula for an enterprise zone contains three elements: location, land and labor force. A large tract of buildable land located next to a transportation corridor in an area with a sizable labor pool can attract companies, said Arthur Fish, incentives coordinator for Business Oregon.

However, Fish added, those three factors – even when combined with the promise of abated property taxes – may not be enough to guarantee the success of an enterprise zone.

In the cases of Madras and Redmond, for example, both met the main criteria for their enterprise zones. Redmond, however, met a fourth: a proactive marketing strategy that Redmond economic development manager Jon Stark said employed multiple platforms to spread the word.

“We’ve been successful because we’ve gotten multiple people to promote our program in a uniform fashion,” Stark said. “We promote the program, the city promotes it, the businesses that have used it promote it, and even the real estate agents around town promote it.”

Representatives of the city, the economic development department and some companies that have used the zone, promote it at trade shows around the region and the country each year, he said. And they meet with real estate agents around town every few months to make sure they’re up to date on the available land within the enterprise zone, he said.

Madras officials, meanwhile, have observed this. They have taken large strides to improve how they promote the city’s enterprise zone. No projects have been approved in the enterprise zone yet, but Madras is in discussions with two interested companies: Mid-Columbia Lumber is weighing whether to update a facility in Culver and Butler Aircrafts is considering a renovation of a hangar at the Madras Airport.

“The problem has been that we never had a person here in Jefferson County with their boots in the ground promoting the program,” said Wayne Pearson, who recently was assigned to represent the enterprise zone by Economic Development for Central Oregon.

The county and the cities within the zone are proactively seeking businesses more so than in years past, Pearson said. Also, they are targeting specific types of businesses that would be a good fit for the area, he said.

“Earlier this year we sent out a promotion package about our available land and the program to the (National Association of Container Distributors) because we feel a bottling company would be a great fit to the area,” he said. “We have great water here, in addition to affordable land and the program, and we are making sure that bottlers know that in case they decide to move or expand.”

Enterprise zones are working in other parts of the state, too. Just this year four companies have announced that they are performing expansions or building new facilities within Gresham’s enterprise zone. Most recently, Solexant, a thin film solar manufacturer, announced that the company will be building a $37 million factory within Gresham‘s enterprise zone that will create more than 100 jobs. Boeing Corp., Portland Specialty Bakers and ON Semiconductors also applied, and got approval, to enter Gresham’s zone this year; the three companies combined will spend $108 million.

Prineville also has benefited from its enterprise zone, where Facebook late last year chose to construct its first data processing center. The enterprise zone was one of two reasons that the company selected Prineville to be the home of its 300,700-square-foot facility, said Ken Patchett, manager of the new data center.

But not all of Oregon’s 59 enterprise zones are success stories, Fish said.

“Sometimes it’s just that the area isn’t attractive to businesses,” he said. “But a lot of the time it’s because these areas don’t do a good enough job of promoting the program and being proactive about getting the word out.

“There is no point of putting all the time into setting one of these up if you aren’t going to let people know about it.”

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ON Semiconductors, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based chip manufacturer, applied last week to enter a Gresham enterprise zone that was recently approved by Gresham City Council. If accepted, the company would join Boeing Co. and Portland Specialty Baking in the newly adopted enterprise zone and would receive a five-year property tax abatement from the City of Gresham.

The company plans to invest $7 million in equipment and infrastructure to accommodate expansion of its plant located at 23400 N.E. Glisan St. in Gresham, according to the enterprise zone application submitted by the company. It is being proposed that 25 new employees would be hired due to the expansion.

If accepted, the company would invest at least $1 million to the zone and would be required to create a local procurement plan. ON would also have to pay a 25 percent community service fee in the final two-years of the enterprise zone.

Boeing Co. plans to invest over $100 million to the enterprise zone as they construct a new 60,000-square-foot plating facility. Portland Specialty Baking plans to spend $1.4 million to expand its operation.

Gresham City Council will vote to accept the application at the May 18 meeting.

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