Google opening new Oregon data center, office

PORTLAND (AP) — Google is expanding its presence in Oregon.

This week, the company will open a new data center in The Dalles. The 164,000-square-foot building nearly doubles the size of the company’s current data center.

The cost of the new facility: $600 million.

Google’s first server farm in The Dalles opened in 2006. The company was drawn to Oregon by cheap power and favorable tax breaks. The state has no sales tax, and special enterprise zones exempt the data center’s computers from local property taxes.

Still, Google paid $1.2 million to the city, Wasco County and the local school district when it won the tax deal in 2013 for the new data center.

About 175 people work in Google’s data center in The Dalles, according to the city, including 90 contractors.

The company also announced this week it has leased a new office in downtown Portland to replace its previous one.

Google did not say how many people would work in the 15,000-square-foot space. The company has about 20 employees in Portland.

The company first opened an office in Portland in 2010, when it bought a small Tualatin company, Instantiations.

Google says the Portland lease is unrelated to ongoing considerations to bring Google Fiber’s Internet service to Portland.