The Planning Commission of Forest Grove in Oregon has approved a data center development.
During a September 3 meeting, the commission voted 4-2 to greenlight an application by Crane Data Centers for a data center campus.
To be located at 2975 Heather Street in Forest Grove, west of Portland in Oregon, the data center campus is being developed by Crane and will include the phased construction of two buildings.
The site covers approximately 35 acres, and the buildings are expected to each span 178,750 sq ft (16,606 sqm), with Building 1 reaching a height of 45 feet and Building 2 70 feet.
Additional works will be site improvements including off-street parking, two stormwater quality facilities, an equipment yard, and landscaping
The data center was originally approved by the Planning Division staff on July 31, but the owner of a property located north of the site appealed the decision.
According to a report by the Forest Grove News Times, following the reaffirmed greenlight for the project, residents "stormed out" and criticized city leadership for the decision.
Plans for the data center campus were first revealed in January 2023, with reports at the time stating that the campus would have a capacity of 50MW at full build-out, with the potential to expand to more than 100MW.
The project is being conducted in partnership with Principal Real Estate Investors and is seemingly Crane's first data center project.
The company was launched in 2019. Its CEO, Matt Pfile, previously spent a dozen years at Google, with roles in data center energy and location strategy.
The company aims to develop wholesale, powered shell, and build-to-suite hyperscale facilities, and lists planned projects across the US in California (Silicon Valley and Los Angeles), Arizona (Phoenix), Illinois (Chicago), Northern Virginia, Georgia, and Texas as well as Tokyo & Osaka in Japan, and Sydney and Melbourne in Australia.
Data Center Map lists 111 data centers in Oregon, with the major markets being around Portland and Boardman.
Hillsboro, just outside of Portland and east of Forest Grove, has Aligned Data Centers, Stack Infrastructure, Digital Realty, QTS, Rowan Digital Infrastructure, and Oracle among those operating data centers.
