A developer's interest in building one of the region's largest data centers on the old Lewis & Clark Ranch has turned West Richland's usually quiet city meetings into standing-room-only events, with residents demanding the city slow down and tighten its rules before any project moves forward.
Mayor Brent Gerry told the Port of Benton Commission on Oct. 15 that Trammell Crow Company is working through due diligence and a purchase and sale agreement with landowner Frank Tiegs LLC for a data center that would start on 500 acres and could eventually grow to 1,000 acres, according to Tri-Cities Business News. A separate report from Search Results Realty Group, citing the Tri-City Herald, put the value of the Tiegs-to-Trammell Crow land deal at $264 million.
No formal data center application has been filed with the city yet. West Richland has confirmed the land sale itself but not any specific development plan, NBC Right Now reported after more than 100 residents packed a council meeting on the subject.
How the zoning changed
The opening for a project this size exists because of a code change the City Council approved earlier this year at the request of Frank Tiegs LLC, which owns the Lewis & Clark Ranch property. That change allows data centers in areas zoned urban transition and light industrial, according to Tri-Cities Business News. Residents have since launched a Change.org petition asking the council to reverse that decision.
The fight has since moved to the city's Planning Commission, where another large crowd showed up to oppose a proposal known as TXT-0006-2026. As The Center Square reported, the measure could shift authority over major industrial project decisions from the elected City Council to an appointed hearing examiner. Residents instead want the city to require a conditional-use permit for any data center proposed in a light-industrial zone, rather than allowing one to be approved outright.
What officials and residents are saying
Councilmember John Smart told the Sept. 1 council meeting he won't support a data center unless resident concerns about water, noise and quality of life are addressed, but he also pushed back on reflexive opposition: "Don't organize based on anti-data center rallies just for the sake of being against data centers," he said, according to The Center Square. Smart said the city needs real answers: "What are the concerns? What are the studies going to show us? What should we ask data center proponents about? What are the questions to mitigate?"
Resident Raven Condray told Apple Valley News Now her worry centers on her kids: "I am purely here out of the fear I have for my children, their drinking water." Community and Economic Development Director Eric Mendenhall tried to separate rumor from fact at the packed council meeting, asking, "What are the boogie[men] in the closet? Which ones are real and which ones are not?" according to NBC Right Now. Councilmember Kate Moran, at the same meeting, said she believes public participation matters to the process, according to the same report.
The Amazon comparison
The debate gained a new point of comparison Oct. 3, when Amazon announced it will stop requiring nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on data center deals, commit to earlier public engagement, and publish annual water and energy use data for its facilities nationwide, Tri-Cities Business News reported. Amazon's own Mid-Columbia project, a roughly $4.8 billion to $5 billion data center campus at Wallula Gap through the Port of Walla Walla, is a separate undertaking from the Trammell Crow proposal in West Richland. Richland also has a pending option agreement with Atlas Agro near Horn Rapids Road for a possible data center site.
A Tri-City Herald opinion column, published Sunday and syndicated by Yahoo News, argued the West Richland project should be stopped outright, reflecting the intensity of local sentiment even as the underlying land-use questions remain unresolved.
The region's data center push is unfolding alongside other big power-demand questions, including Richland's council vote on a BPA power study tied to a proposed $3 billion nuclear fuel plant. State lawmakers in Olympia are also weighing tax exemptions and new water and energy rules for data centers statewide as public pushback grows in communities like West Richland.
For now, residents who want a say have three avenues: the Change.org petition, future Planning Commission consideration of TXT-0006-2026, and City Council meetings, where no vote date on a requested zoning moratorium has been announced. No timeline exists yet for when, or if, Trammell Crow will file a formal application.
