[quote style=”2″]City Annexes Property for New Data Center[/quote]
Amazon subsidiary Vadata, Inc., now owns an additional 30 acres of property in the city of Umatilla.
Tuesday night, the Umatilla City Council unanimously approved the annexation of three lots Vadata purchased from the Port of Umatilla off Beach Access Road. The lots, which total about 30.13 acres, are adjacent to the company’s existing data center, which was previously annexed. A representative of the company said they plan to begin construction on a second data center building next year.
The company has also moved forward on constructing a new substation to serve the facility and is paying to extend a new 115kv transmission line to the area.
The properties were within the city’s urban growth boundary. During the meeting, the council also rezoned the property from Umatilla County industrial zoning to the city of Umatilla’s heavy industrial zoning.
The Umatilla Planning Commission reviewed the applications for annexation and rezoning and recommended approval of both.
In other business, the council:
• Approved a liquor license for Village Restaurant 3 in the former Desert River Inn.
• Discussed, but took no action on, a request for funding from Umatilla High School for purchase of blue Viking T-shirts for all students and staff at the school. A committee is looking to raise $2,500 from local businesses for the shirts. The city council asked for an update on fundraising for the next council meeting, but expressed concern over “opening the floodgates” to donation requests.
• Discussed a request from United Way for automatic payroll deductions for city employees. By consensus, the council agreed not to undertake the automatic deductions but encouraged employees who wish to do so to donate on their own.
• Accepted the resignation of Brandon Wilson from the Parks & Recreation Committee and Joshua Roberts from the Umatilla Planning Commission.
