Despite what we humans want, machines and corporations are moving ahead undaunted, and Hillsboro, Oregon is seeing a continuous wave of Data Center projects. Will they be home to AI Computing? Or more Data Storage Co-Location sites that want to be on the Fiber River running through Hillsboro on its way to the Pacific Rim? You know what, maybe it doesn’t matter. Until we, as residents, take definitive action, the march of metal, money, influence, and power will not end. Well, it will end when the last Oak tree and yard of topsoil along the eastern edge of Jackson School Road is gone — but that will just be a pause until the march begins again to the West when the people in power get what they want.
One thing we do here at the Herald is continue to share what we research, know, and discover. And what you do with that is totally up to you. Those who have shown up at Hillsboro City Council this past year have done so to hear what can be done, to share their concerns, and to make powerful statements. That is the story here. Every walk of life has come in to speak on a wide variety of topics. In 40 years of attending City Council, Planning Commission, and every other form of meeting here, I have never seen anything like this. The paradigm has shifted, and the sands are sliding out from under the powers that be, which have been running Washington County for years.
In June, the Hillsboro City Council and Staff held two meetings. In July, work continued on data centers, including reviewing our land use laws and codes that allow them and how we define them. Hillsboro posted a lot of information and began to engage with it head-on. For the first time, maps were made available to show our community what data centers we have and where the next few might be. A wealth of information is available on the City webpage dedicated to this matter. A lot of work is happening, and the hundreds of people who came out in the past year or two have a lot to do with that.
Before I do a rundown on the projects in planning, let’s look at the key actions taken and what is next:
Moratorium & Code Amendment Timeline
Past Meetings & Work Sessions
June 2 City Council Work Session: Review the meeting video & materials
June 9 City Council Work Session: Review the meeting video & materials
July 21 City Council Work Session: Review the meeting video & materials
July 27 Special Meeting – Moratorium Enacted: Review the meeting video & materials
- August 5: Public notice posted online and mailed to property owners
- August 12: Planning Commission Work Session (public comment not accepted)
- August 26: Planning Commission Public Hearing (public comment accepted)
- September 15: City Council first reading of proposed code amendments (public comment accepted)
- October 6: City Council second reading of proposed code amendments (public comment accepted)
- November 24: 120-day moratorium ends
Now pay attention to this — because the Code amendments mean everything.
“Because of the limited time available, initial draft code amendments are expected to be released 24 hours before the Planning Commission work session on August 12. A link will be posted on the Data Centers in Hillsboro webpage.”
So the Planning Commission will receive code amendments shortly before that work session; the Council will likely get them at the same time. And all of you will too, with a full interpretation with opinions by yours truly! I am encouraged by how hard the staff is working, but experts are needed on this matter, and getting them is tough. Still, the energy is being spent, the Council is all on Board, and we are in this as a Community. The next 6 months will be among the most crucial times in Hillsboro’s and American history. AI has already changed the game. Many of us are already seeing it: family members losing their jobs and Power and Water rates skyrocketing because of it. What we do next, and how we each respond, will define us as humans and determine which camp we pitch our tents in.
On To The Seven Newest Data Center Projects Going Down in Hillsboro, Oregon
The Hillsboro Herald attended all of the meetings and work sessions, and on June 2nd and June 9th, we saw for the first time a different version of this map presented by the Hillsboro Planning team. This is by no means all of the Hillsboro Data Centers that exist or are in the planning stages. To see a version of that, you can review our map, which is constantly evolving with more sites and information — warning: it is pretty scary ;)
We took this map and noted 7 sites we are tracking, numbered in no particular order, which represent the biggest new sites we will see in the future because, as we have written several times, Hillsboro is almost out of land for more Data Centers. Then we added red notations for the sites on this map that were purple in an earlier version and were elevated to yellow. That moved them from “Purchased/Vacant” to “In For Permitting/Construction”. So let’s be clear, these all made it in before the Moratorium, and all can move ahead with the possibility that #2 will have to wait a bit.
Data Center Map as shown by Hillsboro City Council / Planning Staff on 7-1/22 of 2026 in Hillsboro, Oregon — Numbering by Project provided by the Hillsboro Herald. This same map was shown on 7-2-26, updated, and shown again on 7-22-26. The name and the date the project was disclosed as being “in For Permitting” site turned from Purple to yellow between the
DR means Development Review, and this is the City of Hillsboro code, or better known as the Casefile Number, for each project — this is what is referenced if you want to send in comments, testimony, or attend a hearing or meeting, if there is one. Use this link to contact the City staff: https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/services/permitting-center/customer-support/email-permitting-center
#1 DR-014-23 QTS North HIL3 was approved January 12, 2024 –
This massive project is approved. Done deal. The record shows that they can move ahead anytime they want. This is one of Hillsboro’s largest Data Center developers. This project is well over 750,000 SF of building space, per the filing, and will include generators and a PGE Substation. The approval is for “QTS Data Centers”. Ground has not broken yet on this one, which is right next to Digital Realty. This project is very close to West Union Elementary School and directly South of the Helvetia Market. These are very big buildings.
According to the records, this project is being granted Enterprise Zone Tax breaks.
#2 – CDPR VanRose Annexation Agreement – 2791 NE Huffman Street (NTT) as per Planning staff –
This massive project does not have a pending development review based on the emails exchanged with Hillsboro Staff this week. So any project that tried to move ahead during the Moratorium would not be able to proceed. But don’t worry, this property is on land recognized in the VanRose project annexation agreement for 62 acres to be used as Data Storage or Data Center land. Therefore, the diagram we obtained from Clean Water Services or the City of Hillsboro a couple of years ago, with our notations, is offered below.
These sites are like placeholders, and the red dots indicate locations where data centers can be built. NTT Global, which appears to own this land based on records, is very active in Hillsboro, and we believe this will be a project that comes forward in the future. The photo below does not show what this looks like now. NE Huffman is almost completed, as are improvements along Jackson School Road, massive storm retention ponds, you name it. The buildings shown above appear to be 10-15 acres in size each- they are massive!
#3 –DR-012-26 CoreSite HI1 Data Center – NE Sewell Road – Near NE Meek & Sewell –
TheHerald has covered this project extensively. This is the project that is coming up soonest of all. Public Comments were taken in; a lot of concerns have been raised on this one. This project is awaiting the Hillsboro Staff Report and Notice of Decision — the notice will announce the project’s approval (for sure) and outline a long list of conditions. Wetlands, protected trees, a 4-story height issue, and flood plain—some of all of that will be in focus. Read the story here-
#4 DR26-0030 Wagon Data Center, DR26-0031
Let’s just call this one the Liberty High Data Center because that is where it is, and it is in the permitting process. We covered this story on Monday, and it was hard to write it the first time, so let me just say, read it. We really are going to allow it, probably because we have no means to stop it, which is why Hillsboro needs new planning codes ASAP. But this one really hurts. This is one of those things that will forever change a school, a location, and potentially a residential area forever. EVERYONE needs to understand: this is not what anyone wants. Not the kids and parents or school staff, not the residents that live there, not the luxury hotel next door- and this is such a horrible outcome, I can not even imagine that the data center developer wants to build it there. But folks, here we are. I won’t wax poetic about how the City took too long or that no one was watching the store, or that only one caring School Board Member (Patrick Magure) responded to two calls for action by the Hillsboro School Board and District — nope. I will just say that this SUCKS, that Hillsboro is better than this, and that the kids, families, and residents deserve much better.
I, for one, will be testifying and fighting this with anything and everything humanly possible. And that is the right each of us has as residents of Oregon and our community.
#5 STACK (DR26-0032) – NE Brookwood at Evergreen Road
You may have heard our Mayor or Council President Harris say that, because the Data Center Moratorium in July took so long due to so many of us speaking up, that 2 Data Centers slipped in before the gavel dropped on the vote. Maybe you heard from one of them or others that the Herald is to blame because we ruined the surprise attack on Sunday by reporting on a public meeting (wish we had known)? Well, whatever happened, let’s stop all the misinformation, shall we? Only 1 slipped in, NOT TWO—so let’s get our facts straight. And it would be approved no matter what happened because it was already recognized as a DC site in a prior land-use matter. See #8 below. And I do not blame Beach or Rob for not knowing, but am I really the bad guy?
The STACK project was submitted during the meeting. The application simply requires filing an online form, and that is it. That happened. So not much information yet, and this looks like a perfect spot — T5 Data Centers developed this site according to the City Staff (who have been amazing in helping with this information). ADOBE has the data center on the corner.
#6 DR-032-25 – 185th and Walker Road Data Center – HINES DATA CENTER
This is another project that the Herald was the first and only news outlet to cover, and yet it will impact thousands of people the day it is finished. The HINES DATA CENTER has not yet had a public notice, as the public hearing has not been scheduled. Once scheduled, the public notice will be seen or posted at least 20 days prior to the hearing. The application is complete and is currently under staff review. But imagine a massive data center next to the Beaverton Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Primate Research Center, a very sensitive wetlands, and within earshot of multiple neighborhoods.
Again, the Herald sent two emails to the Beaverton School Superintendent and the School Board- only Dr Tammy Carpenter even mentioned getting the emails. How can someone leading the protection of our children and their education have nothing to say? I do not know. This one is going to be a harsh impact in so many ways. Again, we intend, I intend, to comment vociferously, and I hope you do too.
#7 Corny Data Center and DR26-0032 STACK POR01
I think everyone has driven by the super busy corner of Cornelius Pass and NE Cornell Road. The huge open area is still farmed, but it has now been bought for a Data Center, and plans have recently been submitted. This is another Digital Realty et al project. They have been very busy here.
In the next few days, we will do a story on this project. Again, two just massive buildings, and they sit in a location that is just downwind of thousands of apartments in our master planned legacy community of Tanasbourne.
BONUS CONTENT #8- PREAPP26-0035 PDX-02 Data Center
OK, the reference to two sites being turned in during the meeting includes this project, which sent a form in for a meeting with the City. That did not vest this proposal in any way, according to the City staff. The Moratorium is in effect on this one. So here are a few screenshots of this project and what it might be.
The proposal is located at NE Evergreen and NE 30th, directly east of the Hillsboro Public Works building. Aligned Data Centers is on the information and appears to be intending to build this. It appears this project will be in a position to try to officially apply when the Moratorium ends, and we shall see what new rules exist at that time.
Winding It Up
So there you have it. That may not be ALL of the Data Center or AI Computing we will have built in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the next 2 to 5 years, but I assure you this is most of them. Nothing would surprise me anymore. This is the end of a decade of building under the old rules. These projects get to use the old rules. Anything that comes after this will be governed by new rules, which is why this next month is so crucial.
The Planning Staff, Hillsboro City Council, the Mayor, Planning Commission, and all of you will weigh in on new rules, siting requirements, restrictions, and more. The future we have is the one we fight for, and now is the time. For what is in the past, we can try to correct it or regulate it, and find a way to earn some serious revenue for our people. That is what we can do.
I am here to report on this the best I can, Opions and all, because that is The Real Story.
While “extract a better deal from the situation” sounds like a pragmatic solution, that’s going to be impossible in the system that dotted the city with data centers in the first place.
It is clear that elements of Hillsboro and Washington County government view the largest members of the Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce as their core constituency and have acted in their interest. As you have mentioned, they can point to abated land driving more tax revenue than fully taxed commercial and industrial parcels as evidence of their success. In this equation, residents and smaller businesses represent a net loss and their infrastructure, services, opinion, and homes are afterthoughts.
So long as the representatives’ main goal is to help the chamber build presentations and create wins on the ledger, they’re free to overlook small details like quality of life, quality of education, zoning, urban planning, and, most notably, the safety and security of residents vs. corporate property—which receives an interesting signal with the HPD’s move from Calle Diez and Main to the crossroads of airport and data centers.
As we’re regularly reminded, we can’t simply vote our way out of this. But if the region wants a better deal from the giant humming boxes on its doorstep, it will likely have to extract the people who put them there and bring in new perspective.
That means no more old guard on the County Commission in any capacity.
That means installing representatives with the political will to oust unelected officials including city managers and economic developers whose cracked-mirror vision for the area differs wildly from that of the electorate.
And yes, that means showing up in public forums and having highly unpleasant conversations.
This week, there’s been a lot of character count dedicated to the demise of political decorum in this county. But when the electorate sees representatives who, at best, are willing to hike their cost of living and sell their homes out from under them for data centers and, at worst, are unwilling to assist neighbors who stay in their homes in fear and are accosted on streets or just taken without recourse… well, the county’s gentry politics may have bred exactly the decorum they deserve.
“Let’s hold hands and figure this out” would’ve been a great answer when they were still harvesting fescue and watching red tails hunt along the Tualatin Plains. Now that enough people have been ignored, slighted, and harmed, it’s time for the region to start taking the jobs it was promised—starting with those of their least loyal representatives.
I agree, Dirk. Trust and polite culture won’t work and has been used against us. If anything, politeness has become a tyranny (so has twisted versions of “professionalism” and “growth”). I also agree with Jason that voting will only get us so far.
One thing I don’t like about Kotek and Drazen, among the many things, is that they’re coming from a place of economic inferiority complex, which, among the chamber crowd they’re taking their cues from, has a whiff of moral panic. It puts the state in a weak position when at the table, when really, with our resources, we should be negotiating from a position of strength – if we’re to negotiate with extracting outside interests, at all.
Paul, we’re getting some chicken parm at AVA at some point.
I have never seen a state in which the chambers of commerce—instead of cheerleading their towns to a point of near delusion—find it so difficult to muster any degree of pride in the unique place they do business that they sabotage all attempts at negotiation and simply let outside interests take all they ask for. I could understand if this overwhelming sense of inferiority applied solely to sports facilities—as the Portland metro routinely likes to think of itself as a one-horse town despite propping up multiple professional teams for decades. But to apply it to business as in nobody could find anything of value here beyond timber and plates of biscuits and gravy is maddening.
And it’s clear that there are entrenched members of Oregon’s business and ruling classes who will always feel as if a former classmate in some larger city somewhere is laughing at them for being some cornfed rube. Unfortunately, they react to that insecurity by making the exact insecure, provincial decision said rube would make and leave Oregon looking like the caricature they’d always feared.
“And it’s clear that there are entrenched members of Oregon’s business and ruling classes who will always feel as if a former classmate…. ”
I think immediately of NY’s third senator, Ron Wyden. Interesting how the popular mood has shifted in NYC and is starting to shift here, but to the insular prawn sandwich crowd (including Clinton-Obama New Democrats) it’s not surprising that it’s as if nothing has changed. I suppose this is because that although many insecure and smarty pants professional-class liberals claim to love every color on the rainbow, they thrive on inequality and wholeheartedly endorse it. Thomas Frank wrote a good book about this problem ten years ago, relevant now as then, titled “Listen Liberal – Whatever Happened to the Party of the People”. Worth the read.
Anyway, we expect this from Republican elected’s, who have always wiped the butt of the 1%. But it’s liberal Democrats who for years have held the tissue box for the top 10% and along with their blind faith in well-graduated “experts”, as if they’re a new priesthood, that has created the toxic stew we find ourselves in.
I AM discomforted by water issues, most folks who shower, value the water required. I AM discomforted by power issues, most folks who cook their own dinner, should.
As for this romantic attachment to our agrarian roots, and speaking as one person who’s planted enough fence posts, and carried enough 3″ irrigation pipe as anyone ought ever to: farms and ranches have for generations inspired and demanded self reliance, self respect, and a sense of place and dignity, along with a cantankerous opinionated but often ignorant and isolated-a-bunch of coffee drinkers a guy could ever sit across from, for decades, prolly best described in a Randy Newman, John Prine kinda run-on firehose of a sentence . . and as for employees an acre, if you want a town to go bankrupt, populate it full of farmers, and you’ll end up with one guy, or one family with a new truck and a zillion dollar combine, working with 2 or 3 modern day serfs, who can’t afford to live, unless they sleep 5 to a room, in some sheet rock hovel /apartment, driving some beater, sold down after, from 2 or 3 iterations of folks who actually DO, or did, have middle class jobs . . jobs per acre my Posterierrre . . . those data center behemoth buildings are ripe for the picking after technology, financing, and the mega corps building them move on, which they WILL . . buggy whips anyone?
Pompous is as pompous does, since when is a restaurant or mega Hi tech inherently more worthwhile than each other or any other kinda business, to a sanguine view of one’s everyday life, and value in this life . . . people who live in glass houses . . etc., etc.,
Sheesh, I am tired of all the bickering, whining, descendants of the folks who built this country, complaining that there’s no more room at the inn. New is now a dirty word, to be suspected, reacted too, denied and disrespected . . like a bunch of “farmers” who’ve never experienced a drought, because their air conditioned offices are full of spreadsheets, projections, and algorithms . . I for one, want to spend time actually MEETING and TALKING with someone in Winco who WORKS, in a data center, or works, building and maintaining them . . I bet they eat, buy shovels, ruin dishwashers, go to PTA meetings, etc., etc., TOO . . and maybe even use decent grammar and spelling . . .
PS: I drive a 30 year old Toyota, eat sushi, avocado n cheese on toast, and burgers, have 2 goats (Hi Jason), a cat and a dog, and don’t mind helping out a neighbor if they get in over their head, NO MATTER their claims to generation, culture, religion, party, as long as they pay their bills, and don’t beat their kids . . END OF RANT, thank you . .