Google will buy acreage

“We don’t really have plans to develop this site in the immediate future. We just bought it because we wanted to ensure we had options to invest in The Dalles in the future,” she said.

More recently, Google signed a prospective purchase agreement with the state Department of Environmental Quality on the former smelter site.

“The prospective purchase agreement is a legally binding agreement with someone that says yes, we know it’s contaminated and the purchaser has limited liability to the DEQ for environmental cleanup,” Nothnagle said.

The smelter was listed as a Superfund site in 1987 and the owner cleaned it and the property was taken off the national priorities list in 1996, she said.It isn’t easy to acquire a Superfund site, she said, and it involves many steps.

As with the property purchased in June, Nothnagle said, “We don’t have any plans right now. We want to make sure we have options in The Dalles if the business demands it. We want to have options to continue to invest.”

In 2008, Google opened its first two data center buildings. In 2013 another data center was built and it is working on a third facility now. Google’s initial land purchase was 34.3 acres. Then it purchased the Roundtop Windows building and site, at 2.4 acres. Next came the purchase of the 26.9-acre North Chenoweth site, where it is building now. Then it purchased the rodeo grounds and golf course site, at 73.6 acres, which was followed by the June purchase of the 42.7-acre site along the freeway.

In all, the purchased land totals 180.1 acres. With the smelter site, that would bring its total acreage to 276.1 acres.