Oregon: Morrow County, Oregon, rezones Percheron data center land

Land 11 miles southwest of Boardman in Oregon's Morrow County has been zoned from agricultural to industrial, and the board of commissioners has given authorization.  The change in zoning will permit the construction of data centers on the site. There are proposals to construct a 50MW solar farm on 274 acres of land located on Tower Road to the north of Carty Reservoir as well as the Carty Generating Station, a 450MW natural gas power plant. Previously, Threemile Canyon Farms owned the parcel of land.

The parcel will be acquired by Rowan Green Data, a San Francisco-based data center developer who intends to construct a four-building, 1.125 million sq ft data center campus known as the Percheron Data Center. According to the website for the initiative, the land consisted of "unproductive" soil and had no agricultural value. If Rowan is able to obtain the necessary permits without delay, it is anticipated that construction will begin in 2024. The data center has no end users at present. 

Rowan is a joint venture between Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and Birch Infrastructure that focuses on developing hyperscale data centers. The company is currently constructing a 500MW campus in Temple, Texas, and its website lists numerous other developments across North America, such as data center ventures Meriwether and Schwab in Oregon, Matterhorn in California, as well as Moriah, Cinco, and Brown in Texas.