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County staff: data centers are valued by capacity (megawatts); Washington County hosts hyperscale facilities
Summary
Deputy county counsel and assessment staff described how data centers are defined and valued (megawatt-based valuation), noted hyperscale thresholds (cited 50 MW as a common lower hyperscale marker), and said Washington County already has facilities in the hyperscale range.
Deputy county counsel Jason Bush read from the administrative rule definition for data centers and explained the practical meaning for county assessment and planning: "data centers... consisting of buildings or structures specifically designed or modified to house network computers and data transaction processing..." (administrative definition read during presentation).
Staff explained Washington County values data centers on a megawatt basis for property taxation; one rule-of-thumb used in the presentation was approximately $10 million of assessed value per megawatt of capacity. Using that metric, a 50 MW hyperscale facility would represent roughly $500 million in assessed value. Staff confirmed Washington County currently has hyperscale facilities and that some local facilities exceed 100 MW.
Assessment and taxation staff said the county historically used a cost approach for some specialized property but is increasingly factoring market-income approaches (lease rates and market comparables) to estimate value when facilities and server populations come online; they flagged valuation appeals as a likely future occurrence.
