Good News for Rural Oregon

Interesting news lately about data center investments in rural Oregon. Interesting because, for once, rural Oregon is getting the benefit of economic development instead of just urban Oregon.

There are still "two Oregons" when it comes to spurring economic activity in the state. All you have to do is look at rural county unemployment rates, which are all higher than those in urban areas. But several rural investments made news last week, according to details provided in The Oregonian:

         *  Facebook is building a second, 330,000-square-foot data center in Prineville next door to a facility that opened last year.  Upgrades in the region's power network made room for the company's expanded footprint.

         *  Apple is starting small with a new data center in Prineville. 

         *  Amazon is going big. It just started work on a second large data center in Morrow County. 

         *  Officials at the Port of Morrow are optimistic that data-hosting specialist, Rackspace, will exercise an option to buy 99 acres for a new facility near Boardman by its March 31 deadline. 

Further, from The Oregonian:  "Oregon's data center industry is flourishing this spring, with government assistance. The Bonneville Power Administration has accelerated plans to upgrade Central Oregon's power supply, while the state legislature voted last month to guarantee the industry's lucrative tax breaks. Data centers arrived in Oregon in 2006, when Google built its first major data facility in The Dalles. Activity took off last year, when Facebook opened its first company-owned data center, and Amazon opened a long-awaited data center near Boardman."

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Jobs Bills in the Mix

In a short legislative session dominated by budget concerns and Governor Kitzhaber's ambitious reform efforts in health care, education and early learning, jobs bills have taken a back seat. But that doesn't mean they won't make it to the finish line.

There are major bills to coordinate the state's economic development activity, create more enterprise zones and reduce temporarily Oregon's capital gains tax rate. And there is legislation to clarify how and when to tax data centers such as Facebook's that were prize catches by previous economic development recruitment.

Here is a quick overview of some of the significant jobs-related legislation in Salem:

House Bill 4040: Drafted by two influential legislators — Reps. Tobias Read, D-Beaverton, and Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, along with State Treasurer Ted Wheeler, the Oregon Investment Act seeks to align state economic development programs and incentives to make them more inviting to private sector companies. The measure has passed out of the House Transportation Committee, so remains alive.

Read, Bentz and Wheeler co-authored an op-ed in The Oregonian explaining their intentions:

"Oregon spends significant Oregon Lottery profits and other funds today to enhance business development. Yet those tools are scattered across multiple agencies and have little strategic connection, and sometimes have little accountability to measure results.

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