Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Council reviews jobs and land forecast; directs staff to finalize economic opportunities analysis
Summary
Consultants told the City of Umatilla that jobs could nearly double over 20 years driven largely by data centers, that the city lacks large contiguous industrial sites, and that staff should finalize the draft economic opportunities analysis for public hearings.
Umatilla city officials on Monday heard a presentation of a draft economic opportunities analysis and buildable lands inventory and voted to direct staff to finalize the draft for return to the council.
The analysis, prepared by Johnson Economics with land inventory work by MIG, projects nearly 3,000 net new jobs in the city by 2045. Consultant Brendan Buckley said the firm’s “adjusted forecast … estimates that, over the next 20 years, by 2045, the community would be looking at close to 5,900 total jobs,” an average annual growth rate of about 3.6 percent.
That growth, Buckley told the council, is driven in large part by information-sector investments, including multiple data center campuses. He said recent data centers in the region typically occupy about 125–150 acres each and that the forecast implies demand of roughly 1,000 acres or more for data center developments over the 20-year planning period.…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
