Newspapers in Washington state are tired of Hillsboro getting all the data center jobs

It’s one thing to hear local politicians brag about the economic growth here in Hillsboro; it’s quite another to read newspaper editorial boards in other cities outright complain about it.

But that’s what an editorial in the Evertt Herald does this week. Arguing for tax incentives for data centers, the editorial says Hillsboro’s initiatives are attracting investments that previously would have gone to Washington state.

As recently as 2011, Washington state was considered the data center hub of the Pacific Northwest, benefiting from that inexpensive electricity but also its proximity to Amazon, Microsoft and other leaders in information technology. But data center construction has slowed in the state’s rural areas and lags even more in the state’s suburban areas closest to the online giants. Right now, many of those data centers that might have been built here are going to Hillsboro, Oregon, west of Portland, which can match Washington state for energy costs but also benefits from that state’s lack of sales tax and local property tax exemptions. That’s tipped the balance away from Washington state in general, and zeroed out the advantage that rural Washington state enjoyed with its sales tax incentive.

Matthew Hepner and Robin Toth, writing for the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, expressed the same sentiment recently:

The Portland suburb of Hillsboro has invested heavily in communications infrastructure and created an “enterprise zone” offering other incentives to encourage data center investment. Since 2011, it’s estimated that over $1.9 billion has been invested in data centers there, while the Puget Sound region, with a larger population, economy and tech sector, has seen roughly one-tenth that amount. Many of the largest U.S. data center operators, foreign IT companies, and end users have already located in Hillsboro.

It will be interesting to see if Washington politicians respond to this line of thinking, and what city officials here will do if that happens.