Malheur County officials appear to be inching closer to inking a deal to sell the county’s unfinished Treasure Valley Reload Center and undeveloped industrial park to a national railroad company.
With the 120-day due diligence period set to end next week, the Malheur County Development Corp. board is set to meet on Monday, April 21, in a special meeting to sign off on a new budget. The board will also consider a schedule to complete remaining construction of track to sell the Nyssa rail center and industrial park to Jaguar Transportation Holdings.
The meeting on Monday afternoon is scheduled to occur after a Jaguar representative meets with MCDC officials.
According to Shawna Peterson, the development company director, the end of the period means that the $100,000 deposit Jaguar paid for the exclusive right to buy the county properties becomes nonrefundable. Project managers have been tightlipped about the sale price.
Meantime, Peterson, in an April 16 letter to the state Transportation Department, said that new projections show the cost to finish the track at about $2.3 million. Peterson requested that state officials approve up to $2.5 million in what she anticipates will be the “last ask” for a project that has cost upwards of $30 million in public funds.
The county’s development company is required under an agreement with Union Pacific Railroad to complete rail spurs at the site. Peterson told the state that the completion of the rail spurs is a “key deliverable” for Jaguar to go through with its purchase.
According to Peterson, project managers anticipate the remaining to be completed by June 13.
Peterson said that Axiom, a Boise firm helping her oversee the remaining work, and RailPros, another company brought in to complete the rail design work, assured her the remaining work would be completed before the sale deadline.
The sale to Jaguar would end a decade of work at public expense to turn farmland outside of Nyssa into an industrial complex.
The county, MCDC and Jaguar declined to provide any details about what might emerge from such a sale, including how Jaguar would use the site and how much money would flow back to the state.
Officials at the Transportation Department didn’t respond to requests about the fate of $8 million in state funds set aside for the Nyssa project.
Peterson told the MCDC board on Tuesday, April 15, that Jaguar officials have all of the documentation that they requested.
She said the company appear to be very interested at business development at this point of the potential sale. She said while it’s “too early to tell” what the company intends to do with the property, the company has shared with her and Taylor Rembowski, the county’s economic development director, “some promising things.”
Rembowski declined to comment, citing the county’s agreement with the national company not to share details about the sale during the due diligence period. Tim Enayati, senior vice president of commercial development with Jaguar, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Peterson mentioned companies from Canada have been inquiring about establishing a “presence” in Malheur County amid threats of tariffs to Canadian businesses. Mike Walker, an MCDC board member and Adrian farmer, said there would need to be more due diligence on Jaguar’s part when it comes to bringing Canadian lumber into Vale.
“If Canadian lumber has got 25% tariffs,” he said, “that goes away pretty quick.”
Jaguar now owns the Vale-based Oregon Eastern Railroad and primarily ships lumber.
The public project is about two miles north of Nyssa, west of the Union Pacific Railroad line serving Nyssa. Dubbed the Arcadia Industrial Park, the bare land with no services was the foundation for the Treasure Valley Reload Center and an adjacent industrial park. MCDC now owns 65 acres, while Malheur County owns the remaining 230 acres.
The rail center project began in 2017. Funded by the Legislature, the project, originally budgeted for $26 million, ran far over budget under the management of Greg Smith, a Heppner consultant and Republican legislator. Smith left the project in 2023.
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