Sheep move along the fence south of Ellingson Road on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 10, 2026.
A bike ride took me along Ellingson Road on the south side of Albany Saturday. When I stopped to snap a photo of sheep bunched along the fence, the animals took off. So instead, I wondered about the land on which they were grazing:
And yes, as soon as I said it I realized these sheep were a flock and not a “herd.”
This is the land which SVC Manufacturing Inc., a subsidiary of PepsiCo, bought in 2007 for $12.6 million. The company hoped to build a bottling factory and Gatorade manufacturing plant on part of the site, and the City of Albany did all it could to make it happen.
The deal fell apart, and Albany sued PepsiCo for failing to live up to its agreement. This ended in a settlement in which Pepsi paid $20 million, $18.5 million of which went to the city. Further, the settlement said Pepsi would pay the city another $5 million once the company sold the land on Ellingson Road.
But the land didn’t sell. The last time this was mentioned on hh-today was in September 2017. According to a briefing I got from the late Jorge Salinas about the closed-door meeting when the council considered this, the council agreed to accept less than $5 million if that would help Pepsi sell the property.
Apparently it didn’t help. Linn County records show that SVC Manufacturing still owns five parcels totaling roughly 363 acres south of Ellingson Road. Except for 121 acres, the rest is zoned for industrial use and taxed accordingly.
Starting in 2007, the Pepsi subsidiary has been paying hundreds of thousands in property taxes on the land every year. The total tax bill on the five parcels was about $286,600 in 2025, and the records show it was fully paid.
Why doesn’t the land sell? One likely reason is that despite the zoning, it is not suitable for any industry that depends on trucking. Because the Union Pacific rail crossing on Ellingson Road is too close to Highway 99E, it can’t be adapted for big semis.
In 2010, the city could have used its $18.5 million windfall to build an alternate link — an extension of 53rd Avenue across a new bridge over the tracks — but it didn’t choose to go that route.
And so, in January 2026, we see camera-shy sheep grazing on farm land that’s zoned for industrial use. (hh)
I much more enjoy seeing the sheep and the beautiful fields than I would manufacturing buildings (or housing tracts). Keep it as is.
As I recall the discussions about an overpass, it was considerably more than $18M. More into the $25M range and it would take years with RR & ODOT involvment. I seriously doubt that initial estimating would hold either…
and would have made the land more valuable accordingly, and generated more tax revenue and jobs…
Humans, including those on the Albany Council (think the Pepsi Cola mess) , make stupid mistakes and judgements all the time. Hasso, this lack of industry and business in Albany ties in with all the comments on your blog piece about the Bureau of Mines building. A bunch of comments stemmed from that on the metals industry jobs in Albany. Most of those jobs are from days of yore.
Now that we don’t have many metals industry jobs, partly due to automation, and no wood products manufacturing jobs at all, what does the “ordinary working stiff” (an old term) do for a living in this town? They work at Fred Meyer or Walmart or Mennonite Village, or work as caregivers or work on construction. And, a lot of people of working age who live in Albany don’t work here.
Albany has become a “bedroom community” (for those who are not homeless, that is) with a lot of retired people, too. And, this is so set in stone now that commercial/industrial land can’t even get a buyer!
I’m a retired, I leave Albany Oregon in heartbeat if I could afford it ,but I’m stuck here
I agree. I’m stuck here, too. Just got my utility bill. It goes up every month, even though my usage does not go up. The city needs money because they spent everything they had on CARA (their urban renewal district) and the pink bricks on Water Street with the benches facing graffiti-marked walls!
Pepsi Co has not sold the land because they likely have not received an offer that would get them out without losing money. Time cures most if not all mistakes in regards to over paying for property. We can suspect that they’ve not recieved an attractive offer because those with sound minds are not that interested in investing capital to create jobs in business hostile Oregon.
Oh, so now you conservatives are blaming the lower-than-Pepsi-wants offers on their Albany land on Oregon not wanting people to have a job here in Albany. What next?
Carl Riccadonna is Oregon’s state economist. He was appointed to that position by Governor Kotek. He put it as kindly as he could by recently saying “Oregons policies are outdated for challenges the state faces today.” It’s widely accepted by economists and business leaders that our economic future is not bright based on current policies and performance.
I agree with Anon. Oregon has become a poor place for companies to expand their businesses / manufacturing. The city of Albany does not seem to be the worst villain. The state of Oregon has put up a lot of barriers to business including growing taxation. The state of manufacturing growth, like the population itself, is sick. Both are contracting in Oregon, which in demographic terms means “ill”. I don’t see that changing soon.
The lack of Oregon jobs and tax revenue, coupled with deadly smoke, dead wildlife, and degraded landscapes, can be reasonably directed toward spotted owls, the US Forest Service and BLM O&C Lands. If these properties — more than 50% of all Oregon commercial-grade timberlands — were being managed according to existing legal statutes, it would mean thousands of good-paying Oregon jobs (again) and hundreds of millions to our counties for schools, roads, police, and public safety. We know how to do this. Our parents and grandparents showed us how.
Just listened to Hasso’s video on this story. (Thanks, Hasso.) Remember, Albany has the “pink brick road,” i.e., Water Street, so Albany does not need industry that supplies jobs for people!!! That is, Albany City has no money, but they have their Plaza Street…pink brick road.
Build a Casino… LOL
Great idea!!
Take a look at what is going on out there. Industrial land is not what the market is going for. There are about a bajillion new houses being built about 200 feet from these properties. Drive out there and check it out. Pepsi is smart for waiting it out. When the suburban sprawl is everywhere around them, and the rail crossing is proven to be a killer for industrial use, they should have no problem getting their property designated as residential to create an entirely new mini city. I have tried to work with the railroads before in a fairly minor way to get a trench under the side of their line at Lochner and Marion very close to this area when I worked for the youth prison out there. ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE! They are not only unreasonable, it’s like some kind of alternate reality working with them. It took YEARS to get a response form them. You will never get an industrial grade crossing anywhere near that area. With proximity to the highway, sweeps for commercial vehicles are almost impossible without buying out the adjoining properties. Pepsi can wait it out, let the local developers do the grunt work of getting the zoning changes made, then finally recoup some of their investment. Welcome to a market driven economy. That is what makes capitalism work. Zoning itself seems to be a dying trend with the exceptions for everything today. We have had a few houses in our neighborhood turned into for profit half way houses for felons coming out of prison. Understandable, they have to park them somewhere until they can move back in or out of the system. Zoning is (unfortunately in my opinion!) becoming an antiquated concept. I am also probably becoming an “antiquated concept”, so there are probably very good reasons for the gutting of zoning laws that are being decided by people more in touch with current thinking that I am. Either way, if you are going to to support the capitalist system that allows people to do what they want with the property they bought, then rationalize that as you please. If the market proves the concept, so be it.
One thing that we all get to do with property is pay property taxes on it. Oh, wait, that’s not so. Rich businessmen can broker deals and get 10 years, at least, free of property taxes. But, that option is not open to the ordinary citizen who owns a home and maybe some acreage.
Very sound reasoning to get “to” the UGBs we currently have. Take a look (multiple places on web) for the formation of now “Lincoln City” from 5 distinct communities back in the day. Net result? Massive urban sprawl with basically no zoning whatsoever of the types we have and big political battles to even get it formed. That is such a fun drive going that route up/down the coast. LOL
Weren’t the big changes in land use laws in Oregon done in the 1970s under Governor Tom McCall, a staunch Republican (but certainly not a Trump type)? The big push was to eliminate building of homes on farmland or development of tillable land or grazing land for other purposes. It resulted in the strictest land use laws in the nation, which we still have. Oregon developed the urban use boundaries on the edges of cities, and that was the only land that could be developed for housing or where businesses could build headquarters or factories. It was to reduce and control what was termed “urban sprawl.” It would eliminate cities growing outward and blending into another city with no open fields for farming or countryside remaining.
And when the city outgrows their established limit the urban growth boundary is extended into the very place that was intended to be left for agriculture. At one time residents of Albany were allowed to vote on annexation. A number of years ago the Council at that time changed the Ordnance and the voters have no say..
“A number of years ago the Council at that time changed the Ordnance and the voters have no say..”
Au Contraire! Voter absolutely DO have a “say.” It’s called voting…
From the web:
“To understand when Albany, OR disallowed voting on annexations, consider the following points:
Albany voters approved Measure 2-89 in November 2014.
This measure removed the requirement for voter approval on annexations.
The change aimed to streamline the annexation process for the city.
Prior to this, annexations required a public vote.
The decision was part of a broader effort to manage urban growth effectively.”
The huge city of Houston is thriving without zoning. Why couldn’t Albany?
Because Albany is in Oregon and is subject to Tom McCall’s land use laws of the 1970s….that’s why we can’t be without zoning. All a person is allowed to do with farmland is farm it (and go broke if you don’t already have money to back you up) and pay taxes on it.