Amazon West Richland Data Center: Up to 21 Buildings, $263.7M Buyer Unclear

Amazon told the city of West Richland, Washington, on Nov. 2 that it has bought land there and is weighing a West Richland data center campus of three buildings that could grow to 21, according to the city as reported by Apple Valley News Now.

The company has finished initial due diligence but has filed no permit applications, and the state environmental review has not begun, a spokesperson told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business. Amazon says the first three buildings would create 120 to 150 full-time jobs, and that a full build-out would support more than 1,000. The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business puts the site at about 1,000 acres in the Lewis & Clark Ranch area, north of Ruppert Road.

Land Price: What County Records Show

The $264 million figure in local headlines comes from county property records, not from Amazon. The Journal of Business reported that the parcels, formerly held by Frank Tiegs LLC, sold on July 10 to TC West Richland 1 LLC for $82.7 million and on July 16 to WKC31 Development LLC for $263.7 million. Amazon has not given a price, and none of the articles we read says WKC31 is an Amazon entity. Amazon says only that it bought the property from a development company that had acquired it to market to an end user. The earlier buyer was reported to be Trammell Crow, a developer.

West Richland Data Center Water and Power

Water is the number Amazon put on the table. It says the initial three buildings would use about 10 million gallons a year for cooling, and a 21-building campus less than 70 million gallons. That is roughly 3.3 million gallons per building in both cases. Amazon says outside air would carry the cooling load about 93% of the year, with water-based cooling in the hottest 7%, and that permanent supply would be treated surface water, not local wells. A supply plan is still being finalized with local partners, according to Tri-Yak News.

Amazon gave no megawatt figure, and no source we read names the electric supplier for the site. Benton Rural Electric Association said earlier this year, as the Tri-City Herald reported, that it was in early due diligence with an unnamed prospective data center in its service area, with a cost-recovery agreement in place and no decisions made. Whether that is this project has not been stated.

Interim Rules and Local Opposition

The West Richland City Council is due to take up interim data center rules on Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. City staff recommend approval. As Tri-Yak News describes the draft, data centers would be barred in the Light Industrial zone but allowed in the Mixed-Use/Light Industrial zone under development standards, cryptocurrency mining would be barred citywide, and a noise exemption would be removed. The rules would last up to six months. The Journal of Business calls the measure a six-month moratorium. The group Tri-Cities Data Center Watch calls it a "fake moratorium" and wants a stronger one.

Amazon has an open house set for Nov. 19, 5 to 8 p.m., at Enterprise Middle School. It also faces local opposition at its planned Wallula Gap Business Park campus in Walla Walla County, the Journal of Business noted. Voltgrid News also reported on Amazon's Pecos County data center. Elsewhere Amazon has pulled back from a site it paid for: it withdrew its four-building plan on a $427 million campus in Ashburn, Virginia, as Voltgrid reported.

Nothing is approved, and the buyer behind the $263.7 million sale is unconfirmed. No application is on file with the city, the state environmental review has not started, and the price Amazon paid, the power source and the campus capacity are all undisclosed. The Nov. 3 council vote and the Nov. 19 open house are the next public checkpoints.