Umatilla County and the city of Umatilla have both approved enterprise zone agreements with Amazon Data Services for two new $200 million data center campuses in Umatilla.

Umatilla City Manager David Stockdale said the agreements differ some from previous tax abatement agreements the city has entered into for data centers in the past, but are very similar to agreements that Hermiston and Boardman have both entered into with Amazon over the past year.

The long-term enterprise zone agreement exempts Amazon from property taxes on the developments for 15 years, provided Amazon makes at least a $200 million investment in each development, hires at least 10 full-time employees for the site and provides compensation for those employees at least 130% of Umatilla County’s average wage.

Stockdale said the formula for payments that Amazon will make in lieu of taxes includes a minimum of $2 million per year to be split between the city and county (higher if more than two buildings are built), plus $50,000 for education, $50,000 for public safety and payments to all taxing districts equivalent to what the company would be paying in taxes on the first $25 million of assessed value.

In 2017, Umatilla County signed a different type of tax abatement agreement with Amazon’s subsidiary Vadata, known as a Strategic Investment Program agreement, sparking a major disagreement between the city of Umatilla and the county over how the payments in lieu of taxes should be split. The county decided to give Umatilla about $1 million of the $4 million payment, but the city manager at the time, Russ Pelleberg, argued that the city should receive at least half, and threatened legal action.

Since then, Stockdale said, he is “proud to say the city and county have made some really great strides in our relationship.”

He said the city appreciates the county’s philosophy with the long-term enterprise zone agreements that not only should cities where the projects are located receive half the payments, but the county should use its half to reinvest that money back into economic development in the community where it was generated.

At a Nov. 4 Umatilla County Board of Commissioners meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to approve the two agreements for the new Amazon campuses. County counsel Doug Olsen told commissioners the two planned projects would be identical in size and adjacent to each other in the Wanapa industrial area on the east side of Umatilla. He said the plan is for construction on the first campus to begin “shortly.”

“The terms of the agreement are very similar to previous ones with this developer,” he told commissioners.

Commissioner George Murdock said the county and city had worked together as co-sponsors of the enterprise zone to forge the agreement.