St. Helens Industrial Business Park and Electrical Capacity

The St. Helens Industrial Business Park is a 205-acre industrial property owned by the City of St. Helens. It is one of the largest remaining parcels of industrial lands in St. Helens. The property has been a focus of the City’s waterfront redevelopment efforts to spur industrial redevelopment, restore local family-wage jobs to St. Helens, and restore underutilized properties to the tax rolls. In 2020, the City Council adopted an Industrial Business Park Parcelization Framework and Funding Plan for the site to help guide these efforts. The City began Phase One design steps in 2022 to bring necessary utility infrastructure to the site to support future development.

In late 2023, the City began working with a large-scale solar manufacturing company that expressed interest in locating at the site, called Project Sprint. On March 29, 2024, the City received notice from the company that they were unable to reach a decision about the site and would not be extending their letter of intent. 

Exploring the site’s potential for large-scale industry revealed that the property, and the greater region, has inadequate electrical capacity and infrastructure to supply new large-scale industry in our area. This is a recent issue. Electrical capacity and infrastructure to support large industrial development in our region was not a known deficiency. Until the past few years, the area’s service providers at PGE and CRPUD have had sufficient capacity to meet our region’s growing electrical demands. However, the recent siting of large-scale data farms, semiconductor projects, and battery projects in the Pacific Northwest have consumed regional electrical capacity suddenly and drastically impacted the electrical infrastructure of Oregon and Washington. Project Sprint’s proposal would have stretched our region’s industrial electrical capacity to the point of requiring significant upgrades, with infrastructure such as a new transmission line and substation needed immediately.

Learning this information has elevated the need to prioritize electrical infrastructure for our region so that we can be competitive in attracting industry. The City of St. Helens has brought the significant stakeholders to the table to start addressing this issue. A large-scale company expressing serious interest in the St. Helens Industrial Business Park has also brought our area to the attention of state and federal partners. This increases our ability to secure grants and other funding sources to make the site shovel ready for new development.

The City of St. Helens has received a notice of intent to award $2.3 million from the State’s Semiconductor Industrial Lands Loan Program. This funding will be used to advance the electrical infrastructure capacity at the St. Helens Industrial Business Park with focus on the new substation that is necessary for the site.

City of St. Helens staff and City Councilors are committed to addressing the need for electrical capacity and infrastructure so that St. Helens and our region can be competitive in attracting large-scale industry. We have sufficient land, water, and sewer capacity. Solving the electrical hurdle is the next step now that we understand this need more fully. Focusing our efforts here meets one of the primary goals of the St. Helens City Council: creating a sound economic framework for our city.