About 1,000 acres of 7,600 acres of agricultural land northeast of Ruppert Road that make up the Lewis and Clark Ranch area in West Richland were sold – twice and for more than triple the price.

And city officials said the sale was to a development company whose work includes data centers.

The properties, owned by Frank Tiegs LLC, first sold July 10 to TC West Richland 1 LLC for $82.7 million. Then, July 16, the same parcels were sold to WKC31 Development LLC for $263.7 million, according to county property records.

Both companies were incorporated in Delaware within the last year. Delaware law does not require LLCs to publicly disclose the names of their owners or members, so it’s unclear who is behind either purchase.

However, in a Sept. 1 city council meeting, Eric Mendenhall, community and economic director for the city, announced that the sale was to Trammell Crow Company. 

That’s the company West Richland’s former Mayor Brent Gerry said was interested in developing a data center in a public meeting last fall. At that time, he had said the potential data center would be situated on 500 acres at first and grow to 1,000 total acres, and that the company was working through its purchase and sale agreement. 

Mendenhall said during the recent council meeting that the land sale announcement wasn’t typical, but he wanted to share due to the public interest. There are no plans or permit applications filed with the city for any development on the land.

“There will be a public process if we were to receive an application for a data center. Again, we have not received one,” he said during the meeting. “It would go through a significant public process similar to what the Lewis and Clark Ranch went through.”

Two members of the public commented on data centers during the council meeting, asking for the public to be involved as a source of knowledge and for the city to be upfront about the issue. 

Councilman John Smart said that the city isn’t hiding any knowledge about data centers.

“We don’t officially know anything more than you do, honestly. There’s just no secrets here,” he said. “When something happens, it happens, and then we hear about it, and then you know about and so do we.”

He also commented that the city won’t know what’s being proposed until there is a proposal, and he welcomed input from the community on specific concerns so that the city can get those issues mitigated in a potential proposal. 

Trammell Crow Company declined to comment on the land purchase. 

In a 2025 statement, the company said only that it was “studying the feasibility to develop a portion of the Lewis and Clark land. Once our development plans are finalized, we will engage with the city of West Richland and the local community.”

The company has developed or acquired 3,000 buildings since 1948 and has nearly $30 billion of projects in process and in the pipeline, according to its website.

Public response against data centers is growing across the Tri-Cities. 

The Facebook group, Tri-Cities Data Center Watch, has been formed to oppose data center development, with more than 3,000 members joining. The group has encouraged members to speak out at city council meetings and send letters asking for a moratorium on data centers. 

Data center proposals in the Tri-Cities area include Atlas Agro’s proposed Richland data center and an Amazon data center at Wallula Gap. 

Lewis and Clark Ranch is zoned agricultural but will transition to urban uses over time. The city anticipates the first phase – the development of 750 acres – will be an opportunity to create a vibrant mixed-use city hub that offers diverse housing opportunities and encourages walking and bicycling.