Google Buying 30 Acres On Columbia River

THE DALLES, OR-Google Inc. is buying 30 acres on the Columbia River from the Port of The Dalles at The Dalles Industrial Center, a 300-acre park here that the port authority has been selling off in pieces for the past 20 years. A source at the Port tells GlobeSt.com that the Web’s No. 1 search engine has agreed to purchase the building-ready land for $1.87 million and has optioned another 80 acres of adjacent land that is not ready for development.The property, located near Interstate 84 about 80 miles east of Portland, comprises a subset of the park known as the Chenoweth Creek Industrial Properties. Google has agreed to buy the largest property there, a 24-acre site bordered on the north by the Columbia River and on the west by Chenoweth Creek, as well as 80 acres on the other side of the creek that is not ready for development. Of the 80 acres, about 61 acres is developable.The property is located in The Dalles Enterprise Zone, allowing for a potential 3-5 year property tax exemption. The purchase price translates to $62,333 per acre, which is slightly higher than the $60,000 per-acre asking price posted on the port’s Web site. “The sale price or lease rate is negotiable based on the number of family wage jobs created through the project and the overall economic impact to the community,” according to the site.A source at Google would only confirm that the land will be used to develop a “technology infrastructure facility.” In November, Google opened its first Northwest outpost, an office in Kirkland, WA, near the headquarters of Microsoft, which recently launched a search engine of its own.Kathy Gray, a reporter for the local daily newspaper, the Dalles Chronicle, obtained the documents signed by Google and the Port. According to the associated article, a variety of conditions apply to the sale, including: approval of enterprise zone tax incentives, installation of a fiber-optic ring to serve the property, and the availability of a power tap from Bonneville Power Administration by a date certain.Under the agreement, the port agrees not to sell or lease land within the industrial park to a business competitor, or to any parent, affiliate or subsidiary of one for six years from the agreement date, according to the article. The prohibition is based on a confidential list provided by the seller, deemed a “trade secret” under Oregon statutes, it states.For the additional 80 acres, which is broken into three parcels, the article states that Google has agreed to make an initial payment of $30,849 to keep the property available to them under terms of the six-year options, with additional annual payments required to maintain each. The agreements also establish initial future purchase prices for the three properties, according to the article: $1.67 million for 41.81 acres, of which 39.7 are considered developable; $310,000 for 15.5 acres of un-developable buffer, and; $1.1 million for 24.5 acres, of which 22.1 acres is developable.