Hillsboro made an announcement earlier this year on their website. I am unsure who received actual notice. However, during the 4th of July weekend, many people were surprised to discover that the North-South access to Hillsboro from US 26 at Jackson School Road had been closed with barricades. That road serves as a central hub of transit, providing direct access to busy downtown Hillsboro, Washington County, and the Hospital and central city. Here is what was posted in the Hillsboro News Times on JULY 7th, 2025- the SAME DAY the Road Closure began.
Hillsboro has officially announced a full closure of Jackson School Road north of Evergreen Road for this summer’s construction work:
Closure limits: From the roundabout at Jackson School Road & NW Scotch Church Road northward to Evergreen Road.
Dates: July 7, 2025 through September 2, 2025,
Reason: Underground utility upgrades and other site work associated with a private development project
Detour route: All through-traffic is being diverted via the Glencoe Road exit off Highway 26; message boards will direct motorists before the Jackson School turnoff Hillsboro News Times
Detouring around Hillsboro in 2025 incurs time and money costs, solely to accommodate more Industrial Development. Google Earth Photo.
Many citizens are asking why!
It is the middle of Summer, and for any of us who rely on Jackson School Road to traverse the City, we are finding ourselves traveling out of our way to get where we need to go. It requires Miles of extra driving, depending on your destination, and has significantly impacted NE Brookwood and NE Glencoe. Traffic flows there have increased. But hey, we are all used to traffic, flaggers, and slowdowns, right? But when was the last time you remember a Major Collector and commuter road being shut? And shut for “Private Development” at that.
It does not happen often. In this case, I am not surprised. This is all part of the massive VanRose Industrial Park development, which the City of Hillsboro and its development partner, Trammel Crow, have been pursuing. When we say huge, think of really massive, like dozens and dozens of football stadiums lined up side by side.
Earlier this year, the Herald covered what was happening with the VanRose property. Most people will remember the windmill at the Vanderzanden Farm on Jackson School. That is the land at the center of this growing story.
190 Years Of Farming Ends As Latest Massive Data Centers And Factories Expand In Hillsboro
The Herald researched plans and looked closely at what is happening. Here is what Hillsboro will be getting out of this massive real estate deal:
- A new traffic Light at Evergreen Road and NE Huffman.
- A new expressway to the East from Jackson School through the North Hillsboro Industrial Park.
- Massive Data Centers backed up to our historic Waibel Creek Wetlands.
- Buildings so big that over 13 football fields can fit under one roof.
- Thousands of new parking spots.
- Jobs – some- TBD.
- Property Tax revenues.
Ok, sure, it is industrial development. This is the way things are. Giving a company like Kerr Construction, hired to build the infrastructure, a pass to not have to hire flaggers like our residential builders, schools, and other community partners have to? Closing a major collector for a company that the city has been closely liked to- is that unusual? This is unprecedented in my book and this move saves Trammel and Kerr hundreds of thousands or millions and greatly speeds up the process. Last night on the drivethrough the road showed little signs of needing to be closed.
Our leaders prioritize this over housing, utility costs, and environmental impacts. Hillsboro is run and controlled by a growth-over-everything mentality leadership. And as we give away decades of property taxes, we pay the price right here as citizens. We go without so others can gain.
Here is what is being built-
Look at that – 18 acres under roof. 13 Football fields will fit in that one building alone. The scope of all of this is just incredible. And make no mistake- fortunes are being made as that road is closed. The contractors doing the work will have a substantial amount of money when this is done. These buildings represent only about half of what’s happening there. Many more buildings will be coming as development connects to the South at Evergreen Road.
A new light is coming to Jackson School Road, which will bring traffic and massive development pressures up against the farmland on Evergreen Road.
Trammel Crow is one of the world’s largest developers. The company is owned by CBRE Real Estate and they are doing the leasing/sale of the buildings. These companies have been here reaping the harvest in Hillsboro, where our legacy farmers once did. So we had to ask, if CBRE owns Trammel Crow, who owns CBRE? The answer takes us right to the most powerful Wall Street entities in the world:
CBRE Group, Inc. is a publicly traded company (NYSE: CBRE), so it’s owned by its shareholders rather than a single parent. As of mid-2025:
Institutional investors hold the vast majority of outstanding shares — about 96.37% of the float. WallStreetZen
Insiders (directors, officers, and other company insiders) control roughly 50.82% of the shares. WallStreetZen
Among institutions, the single largest registered holder is ValueAct Holdings LP, with approximately 97.99 million shares (about 32.87% of the company). WallStreetZen
The next-largest institutional positions are (approximate figures as of March 31 2025):
Vanguard Group Inc. – 48.06 million shares (~16.15%) Trendlyne.com
BlackRock Inc. – 28.43 million shares (~9.56%) Trendlyne.com
State Street Corp. – 13.50 million shares (~4.54%) Trendlyne.com
What do we know about Trammel Crow / CBRE nd the City of Hillsboro? A quick search of the public records produced this summary:
The City of Hillsboro and Trammell Crow Company have a very close, ongoing public–private partnership—particularly around large‐scale industrial and technology parks in North Hillsboro:
Hillsboro Technology Park / Hitachi Center of Excellence
The City’s urban renewal arm (the Hillsboro Economic Development Council) purchased and then sold a greenfield site directly to Trammell Crow to serve as the turnkey developer for Hitachi High-Tech America’s new “Center of Excellence.”
To make that possible, the City (in partnership with Business Oregon) committed over $8 million for right-of-way acquisitions and advanced infrastructure—roads, utilities, sewer pump stations—specifically to support Trammell Crow’s build out of both the Hitachi facility and surrounding Technology Park hillsboro-oregon.govhillsboro-oregon.gov.
Additional Industrial Developments
Trammell Crow has frequently been Hillsboro’s go-to developer for speculative and build-to-suit industrial properties. For example, TCC developed and later sold (to Principal Real Estate Investors) a 195,546 ft² industrial facility at 3600 NE Huffman St.—fully leased to Hitachi—underscoring the depth of its local commitments REBusinessOnline.
Beyond that single project, TCC’s Portland office—through leaders like Kirk Olsen—continues to source, entitle, and execute multiple large-footprint developments across North Hillsboro’s industrial zones, often in close coordination with the City’s Economic Development and Public Works departments.
Bottom line: Trammell Crow is not just “another” developer in Hillsboro—it’s effectively the City’s primary partner for major industrial and technology campus build-outs, backed by multi-million-dollar public investments and property transfers to get shovel-ready sites into their hands.
Concerns Grow –
Beyond my work here at the Herald, I have been a local community leader for 43 years. I also have held a real estate brokerage license here and have been very active in development and land sales. The last few years, I have been asked to consult with local owners trying to sort out what is happening with their properties, especially where North Hillsboro is concerned. Concerns over how folks have been treated and what information has been shared with them are rising. Transparency and proper advice were challenging to find at a time when it was so greatly needed.
More than one landowner has indicated to me that they felt taken advantage of. Questions asked of local governments were not answered. In more than one case, the City of Hillsboro was an active purchaser of land in the area of concern. How is/was the City was able to balance its interests and provide conflict-free answers is a tricky question. I will expand on this later in a follow-up story as people become more willing to talk.
As we all face the future, we must ask what these relationships do, who wins, and who loses. Is this the Hillsboro we want to be? Do we want Black Rock, the Vanguard Group, CBRE, and Trammel Crow running our futures and controlling the decisions here? I would like to think not. How do we as citizens of this town not end up like George Bailey’s people living in a Potter’s Field?
Massive growth is happening here in North Hillsboro again. Let’s hope this is a good thing for all concerned and that more than just the Trammel Crows of the world benefit. I hope some of our current city leaders have the guts to ask these questions- and to think of all of us first.
I’m glad to see that “Do we typically shut down entire roads that connect the city to 26?” isn’t a crazy question to ask.
This isn’t a great county for advance notice on road work in general, but they did provide us a few weeks’ notice on this particular closure in terms of mailers and signs. The signs for this closure were actually more detailed and helpful than the “roads may be closed” signs Hillsboro tends to use for events like the Fourth of July parade.
What’s been less helpful is the widespread construction closures on each side of what the city now views as one large industrial park. Throughout the Jackson School closure, there have been multiple lane closures on Evergreen and Brookwood serving only the adjacent development. That’s made what’s already a less-than-ideal detour a functional no-go for some of us up here. Much as driving almost to North Plains just to get on 26 to head east isn’t my preferred plan of attack, it’s been better than dealing with anything east on Jackson School, where I’ll remind you that even 25th is still clogged up with yet another construction project at the intersection of 25th and Cornell. One more lane, bro…
As fun as it’s been to watch our local public works braintrust berate the locals on other platforms for saying that this all might be a terribly inefficient way to keep a city moving—especially with Union Pacific just wholesale shutting down portions of 8/TVH/Oak and Baseline between us and Cornelius at random intervals during the weekend—I’m going to go ahead and say that having north-south connectors squeezed off by private interests as they see fit is less a public good and more of an institutional failure on the part of both the city and county.
Yesterday heading East from WinCo I noticed a big backup, I detoured on the road behind WinCo and down 1st — but I was wondering what in the heck is going on in the middle of the day — bad accident? But maybe what you mentioned? Then I remembered I believe it passed to majorly redo TV hwy through Hillsboro and wondering if this is the start — that along with this article’s development is going to be a big nightmare!!! And I feel largely unnecessary 🤬
It happened last year as well: That’s not TVH maintenance, that’s “multi-year” Union Pacific surface track replacement. Again, we receive minimal notice about any of this, and it’s often tucked behind paywalls: https://hillsboronewstimes.com/2025/07/11/hillsboro-rail-replacement-brings-more-road-closures-at-end-of-july/#:~:text=By%20Nick%20LaMora,Dennis%20and%20Southwest%20Adams%20avenues.
But they consider that project complete now (even though today’s the last day of it), so it doesn’t show up on WC-Roads—you know, the well-publicized and super accessible source for this information that citizens are supposed to track down on their own because it’s way too difficult to just put up a road sign (or because the six that the county owns are all in use on the North Hillsboro project): https://wc-roads.com
Jason-
Did you note that the City ran storm pipes across Jackson School into the farm country? Granted this was a good time to do it, but that is actually supposed to be permitted and approved as it is an Urban service. I suppose it was smart to do, but from all my past experience, that would mean the storm ponds on Trammel Crow’s site would need to be sized to handle all that storm water. Well, so it goes- Hillsboro plows ahead into an uncertain future!
I didn’t know that, but it’s not surprising. There’s storm drainage on our side of Evergreen running from Jackson over to Glencoe. As you mentioned, it’s just a good time to do it, and perhaps the storm system up there drains down here as well (new culverts came in a couple of years back), but Trammel Crow’s site had some serious drainage ponds dug out over by the tulip farm.
That’s a county road, dumbass.
Buddy… fuck your jurisdictional grievance.
Let’s not pretend that this county road doesn’t abut a fresh section of Hillsboro, or that the county commissioner whose district it sits in isn’t inextricably tied to Hillsboro, or that the county itself may not want to impede transit or commerce for months at a time just because neither it nor the developers along its roadways have figured out how to work within the confines of a right of way.
In other states, this would be night closures and workarounds. But in Washington County, which treats all development and infrastructure like the early stages of a game of SimCity, the locals have never met a problem a road closure couldn’t solve.
So this is why PGE wants massive rate increases–we can all subsidize the new electrical infrastructure for massive billionaire-owned AI computers. No doubt we will also have our wallets tapped for their water needs.
PGE admitted just this last fall in their reply to Wyden questioning their excessive rate increases!!! Surprisingly admitted it, unacceptable to do it at at all and not have Industry pay their fair share!
Hillsboro water, which I’ve followed closely past several years, spoken at rate hearings and in-between many times:
Never admits Industry isn’t paying fair share and residential is subsidizing! Although in this case it’s Intel whose water usage is so massive since 2018 they have their own category. Almost 4 times the rest of Industry (including our already many data centers)– last Fall most recent pie charts still show this and Intel only category underpaying, Residential overpaying. So does look like Data Centers are paying for their usage. I’ll keep watching with this extreme increase!!
Also what concerns me, I’ll comment more on below, Hillsboro Public Works — co-manages with CWS, sewer and surface water management — extreme rate increases started this year and I have been suspicious for some time if we’re paying for Industries infrastructure.
I would like to see what they are charging.
No Coordination- the Fair caused HAVOC. 25th is a nightmare. Walnut headed West backed up to 10th in the evening. My previous predictions and analysis is sadly happening.
The sorority girls that run Oregon, Hillsboro, and now Washington county will run these developers and their tech customers out of the area soon anyways. Anyone with two connected brain cells is tired of paying ridiculous taxes so the sorority bureaucrats can pay their college friends $250k a year to spread the gospel of DEI or hand out care packages containing a sample tube of toothpaste, condoms, and tinfoil to the homeless.
“Hillsboro is run and controlled by a growth-over-everything mentality leadership.”
Excellent summary statement for Hillsboro’s leadership for some time now.
1. Vote Them Out! And Vote! We had several promising city council people running in most recent election but the status quo candidates were chosen. Hillsboro residents can’t complain leadership without this focus aren’t chosen. Except Kipperlyn Sinclair — she’s a keeper☺️
2. Don’t Forget that this very land (called Jackson East) was taken from these residents, many generational rural homes, despite their unified, consistent attempts to fight this 🤬Prime example of this very mindset Dirk summarized well, and because they had extremely rapidly already built up the huge North Hillsboro Industrial area around and off of Brookwood closer to Hwy 26. If you have even lived here about 10 years, you know this area was all rural.
Topgolf was the first built in this area, to my memory and that was in 2016 per google search. I don’t dislike Topgolf — added an unique enjoyable activity and many jobs to Hillsboro, just using this for time frame.
Goofed on sentence above (typing off my phone)
Hillsboro residents can’t complain leadership without this focus aren’t chosen
Hillsboro residents you can’t complain about leadership when leaders with different mindsets aren’t voted in.
I wrote this comment also on Nextdoor—Dirk time to research and report on this more!!:
Another area that especially concerns me: Quote from Article: “To make that (Industrial development) possible, the City … committed over $8 million for right-of-way acquisitions (my note: don’t forget this very land was taken despite current residents unified fight for years against it) and advanced infrastructure—roads, utilities, sewer pump stations…”
Are we paying for this “advanced infrastructure”?
Not the first time I have heard, in connection with the City of Hillsboro a similar statement. Our city planner bragged a few years ago, in another news article (different paper): about another Industrial site (possibly the Data Centers to the east of this article’s location) which was “shovel ready”. All adds to my growing suspicions we are paying for this with our yearly excessive utility rate increases.
Hillsboro’s Point in case:
Hillsboro Public Works (HPW) who co-manages with CWS — sewer and surface water management, starting this year now has their own rate increases. These are extremely excessive–who has noticed??? It was quietly passed by Hillsboro City Council last fall with NO public notice for comment (such as Hillsboro water does in MANY ways with their rate increases–ie city newsletter, and on the Utility Bill…). I studied this as Dirk alerted me to it, and he only noticed as he reads the lengthy agendas for the City Council regularly. I was indeed the only person who gave public comment. I also protested as these HPW rate increases were supposedly supported by their “Study” which was NOT available for the public yet. I persisted several times in getting this and it was JUST released by HPW the end of July!! Along with the additionally concerning statement (email from the council):
“The Council will receive this update as well.”
Let’s see: Our Council who already voted to approve these excessive increases almost one year ago!!!
Historical Context: Prior to this year CWS set yearly rate increases–around 4% (this year with their public scandal and public outcry they decreased it to 3%). In contrast January’s 2025 HPW’s own rate increases were (keep in mind they ALSO had the joint CWS increase of 4%): Sewer 8% and Surface water management 20% !!! Quite a bit Higher than CWS’s increases which are all over the news (granted because of their scandal)–where is the news story on these MUCH higher increases??? And quite possibly the reason why such high increases—??? Paying for Industry to be “shovel ready” ??? I have only had time to skim the study (much shorter than Water’s but also not seeing a lot of details so far).
Sewer will be 8% for next 4 years then 5%. SWM is 10% next two years, then 5%. https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/our-city/departments/public-works/sanitary-storm-sewers/rates
Also associated with this study: “The 2024 Sanitary Sewer Master Plan” (I inquired about looking at it also). Similarly, this was just released also: and got this in an email July 31st (also received a PDF attachment–I have not had time to look at this yet):
The draft report is posted in the website for comments:
https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/our-city/departments/public-works/sanitary-storm-sewers/sanitary-sewer/sanitary-sewer-master-plan
Due to scheduling conflicts with City Council around HB 101, we haven’t been able to present the document yet. We’re now planning to present it in October.
SO MUCH to follow-up on!!!