Data centers in Marion County, Oregon: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Salem kept its data center talks with Verrus secret for more than a year, under a non-disclosure agreement signed in March 2025, and revealed them only in July 2026 after the company decided to proceed and details had already surfaced on social media. Verrus, a California company funded by Google, wants to build at the Mill Creek Corporate Center in southeast Salem. Its first-phase application, filed July 31, describes two buildings of about 600,000 square feet on about 100 acres; the company says it could use up to 3 million gallons of water on the hottest days and about 39 million gallons a year. The whole city uses about 25 million gallons a day.

The backlash reached the governor. After hours of angry testimony at a July 27 council meeting, Gov. Tina Kotek, who lives in Salem, ordered the state to cancel a pending sale to Verrus of 32 state-owned acres, about half the site. "Growth has to make sense for the community, for our infrastructure and for our natural resources," she said. Verrus called the move "unilateral" and said it is now looking at an adjacent 32-acre parcel. State Sen. Deb Patterson said the project had moved "under a cloak of secrecy." Verrus filed its application three days before the City Council was scheduled to consider a moratorium on August 3, 2026; no result of that meeting has been published.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.