Amazon data center coming to Gilliam County

The City of Arlington has paved the way for the first data center to come to Gilliam County. A purchase agreement between the city and Amazon Data Services, Inc. was first discussed in a public hearing on August 7, 2024.

After meeting in executive session on August 7, the Arlington City Council agreed to sell 375.605 acres of property to Amazon Data Services, Inc. for $10,111,000 - with a deposit of $250,000.

The data center will be constructed at 801 Airport Road, at the Arlington Mesa and Industrial Park.

In preparation, the Arlington City Council held two public hearings last week to amend the city's zoning ordinance and to clarify development standards in the Industrial and Airport Development zones.

Locals have speculated about a data center coming to Arlington for over two years. In neighboring Morrow County and Umatilla County, 31 data centers have been built since 2010. Enterprise zones and billions of dollars in property tax abatement have lured the data giants to erect data centers along the Columbia River. In turn, data centers have brought significant investments in construction and property taxes – with over $23 billion in investment from Amazon in Morrow County alone since 2010.

Gilliam County has been looking for a slice of the action.

For over a decade, the Gilliam County Court, the Port of Arlington, and the Arlington City Council have been working to attract investors to the Arlington Mesa and Airport industrial property. The county established and redesignated an Enterprise Zone at the Arlington Mesa and sought to create favorable business conditions with the Port of Arlington as its lead driver for economic development.

Ultimately, Amazon's interest in renewable energy spurred things along. Amazon began conversing with Avangrid Renewables, which owns several wind farms in Gilliam County. In 2022, the City of Arlington, the Port of Arlington, and the Gilliam County Court entered into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Amazon Data Services, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

In February of 2024, Amazon and Avangrid Renewables finalized an agreement allowing the tech giant to purchase more than 200,000 megawatt hours of power each year from the Leaning Juniper IIA Wind Farm, which sits just three miles southwest of Arlington. The deal was significant for Amazon, which has committed to sourcing 100% of its power from renewable energy by 2025. The deal established the company's first utility-scale renewable energy project in Oregon, said Abhishek Sharma, Head of Energy Strategy for Amazon Web Services (AWS).

With energy from the Juniper IIA Wind Farm, Amazon had the power it needed to build a new data center in Arlington.

However, details of the data center build have been scant.

Although the sale agreement has been finalized, the City of Arlington continues to be tight-lipped about plans for the data center. The city council is still working to abide by the NDA it signed with Amazon Data Services and has been hesitant to disclose additional information. After The Times-Journal submitted a public records request, the city provided a redacted version of the sale agreement, charging attorney fees to do so.

Brad Baird of Anderson Perry & Associates is the project's lead engineer. Anderson Perry & Associates has provided engineered drawings of the Arlington Mesa Industrial Park for the sale agreement, but additional information pertaining to water usage for the data center and other Amazon requirements has not been discussed outside of executive session. Agreements pertaining to the city's needs have also not been disclosed.

There is great potential for the City of Arlington to get upgrades for its utilities from Amazon. The city has had issues with its water since the town of Alkali was founded in 1882.

In Hermiston, Amazon Data Services supported the improvement of the city's water utilities and wastewater systems when a data center was built in 2017. In Umatilla, Amazon helped to provide irrigation water for alfalfa farmers using water from the data center. As the Port of Arlington prepares to build a new sub-division for workforce housing - sewer, and water utilities will need to be expanded and Amazon could play a key role.

However, there are also considerable demands for the Arlington data center.

According to National Public Radio (NPR), one data center uses 300,000 gallons of water on average per day. Some large data centers can use between 1 and 5 million gallons per day. The water is needed to cool the many thousands of computer servers inside the data center. With the advent of artificial intelligence, more power, servers, and water have been needed to meet consumer demand.

Editor's Note: The Times-Journal has submitted additional public records requests to the City of Arlington, to the Port of Arlington, and to the Gilliam County Court. We will continue to follow this story closely. The Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism (FORJ) has provided support for public records fees and other services.