The Proposed Newberry Business Park Data Center: A Community Explainer

My name is Jordan, and I'm a local real estate broker with eXp Realty operating here in Central Oregon. Before getting into sales, I spent six years as a county appraiser and have been involved in real estate in one form or another since 2018. I also help private Oregonians navigate the property tax appeals process. Research is genuinely what I do — and when I heard about the proposed development at Newberry Business Park, I decided to dig in. Here's what I found.

The company is Boxminer.io, which operates as a legal entity called Hidden Pines LLC — based out of San Diego County, California. One critical clarification: there is a completely unrelated local business also called Hidden Pines LLC right here in La Pine (an RV park). They are not connected in any way to this proposal.

There is no business currently registered in Oregon under the name Boxminer.io, and no property in Deschutes County is recorded under that name at this time. No formal application has been filed with the City of La Pine as of this writing. Based on available evidence — including Boxminer's own listing of Oregon as an active development state and the park's explicit marketing toward data center operations — the most likely target is somewhere within the Newberry Business Park / Finley Butte Industrial Park corridor, though that specific location has not been confirmed through any public record.

Boxminer builds data centers that mine Bitcoin — but mining is not their end game. It's their bridge strategy. They develop a site, use bitcoin mining to generate revenue and prove the infrastructure, then shop the site to a larger AI or high-performance computing company as a permanent buyer or tenant. The mining funds the build while they pursue the eventual sale.

Their website now describes the company as “Powered Land Development.” What La Pine may actually be looking at is not a permanent bitcoin mining campus — it's a proof-of-concept development intended to attract an AI-related buyer or tenant down the road. Boxminer is the developer and interim operator, not necessarily the long-term occupant.

It's worth being honest about why our community is an attractive target — because the reasons are genuinely good ones for La Pine. Data centers are among the most energy-intensive industrial operations in existence, and cooling is one of their largest operating expenses.

Add affordable industrial land — among the lowest per-acre costs in Deschutes County — plus existing water, sewer, and power infrastructure already in place at Newberry Business Park, and La Pine checks essentially every box a data center developer looks for. This interest is not random. The park has been actively marketed for data center operations, and La Pine is genuinely well-positioned for this type of development.

The industry standard is roughly 3 to 4 megawatts of power capacity per acre of land. A 20MW facility would occupy approximately 5 to 7 acres of active footprint — closer to 10 to 15 acres when you add electrical substation infrastructure, perimeter security fencing, access roads, and buffer zones.

Normally, when a new development comes into Deschutes County, Oregon's Measure 50 property tax system triggers what's called an exception. That exception revalues the land and new improvements, establishes a new maximum assessed value, and the development begins generating property tax revenue — flowing to local government, schools, and public services. That's the standard community return on hosting a new commercial development.

However, Newberry Business Park sits inside the Deschutes County Rural Enterprise Zone — a state-authorized program that provides qualifying businesses with a significant exemption from most, if not all, property taxes normally owed on new development. The exemption can last 3 to 15 years. Oregon also has no state sales tax, and the state's corporate tax structure offers additional relief to data center operators.

For an extended period, this development may contribute very little in property tax revenue to La Pine's schools and local services — regardless of the size or value of the infrastructure built. That's by design. But the community deserves to understand what's being exchanged.

Data centers require uninterrupted 24/7 operation. They cannot be evacuated. They depend on continuous power, cooling water, and stable air quality — all three of which were directly compromised during the Darlene 3 event, when thousands of residents lost power and smoke blanketed the region. A large-scale industrial computing facility in a high wildfire-risk corridor introduces compounding risks:

I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel about this proposal. What I do think is that the conversation deserves accurate information. A few questions worth raising with local officials: