Twenty Years After Google: What The Dalles, Oregon Looks Like Now
The Dalles, Oregon sits on the Columbia River at the boundary between the Columbia Gorge and the high desert â a small city of approximately 16,000 people with a history in aluminum smelting, agriculture, and the timber industry. By the early 2000s, the smelter had closed, the timber economy had contracted, and the city was looking for the next economic anchor. The Columbia River hydropower infrastructure â one of the largest hydroelectric systems in the world â provided electricity at rates that made the region attractive for large industrial users. The question was which users would come.
Google answered in 2006, selecting The Dalles for a campus that has since expanded to become one of the company’s largest infrastructure investments in the United States. The location selection factors were familiar: abundant, affordable hydroelectric power; available industrial land; proximity to fiber network infrastructure; a community willing to work with the developer on permitting and development timelines.
Two Decades of Impact
The long-run economic record of The Dalles data center development is more instructive than any short-term projection, because it shows what actually happens â not what advocates or opponents predicted. The property tax revenues have been real and substantial, funding school and county services over a period during which the alternative revenue sources the community might have relied on were either contracting or stagnant. The construction employment was cyclical but sustained â each expansion phase brought new building activity and new wages into the local economy.
The permanent operational employment has been smaller in absolute number than the construction workforce â data centers are highly automated facilities â but the quality of the employment has been high. Technical positions at hyperscale facilities pay well above the median for communities like The Dalles, and the facilities management and support roles that surround the technical core provide stable middle-wage employment that the pre-data center economy had not offered.
Perhaps most importantly, The Dalles’ status as a proven data center location attracted additional investment beyond Google’s campus. Once a community demonstrates that it can handle the infrastructure requirements of hyperscale development â power, water, connectivity, permitting â site selectors from other operators add it to their active lists. The first large investment de-risks the location for subsequent investors.
What This Means for Imperial Valley
The IVDC would be Imperial Valley’s first hyperscale data center. If it is built and operates successfully, it demonstrates the location’s viability to every site selector in the industry. The geothermal power, the IID independent grid, the I-2 industrial land â these assets become proven rather than theoretical. The second data center investment in Imperial Valley, and the third, become easier to attract because the first one validated the infrastructure.
The Dalles did not become a data center hub by accident or by luck. It became one because it said yes to the first major investment, created the conditions for it to succeed, and reaped the compounding economic returns that followed. Imperial Valley has the technical profile for the same trajectory. The IVDC is the first investment. Everything that follows depends on getting this one right.
Original Article: https://www.ourimperialvalley.com/twenty-years-after-google-the-dalles-oregon-now/
