Lam Research Corporation’s plan to construct new facilities on its Tualatin campus has run into a roadblock after an appeal was filed against the Architectural Review Board’s (ARB) approval of its TUX development proposal.
Lam’s application calls for a new 120,000-square-foot office building, a new 90,000-square-foot lab, a 29,000-square-foot central-utilities building and a 2,230-square-foot storage building on the southern portion of the campus adjacent to Southwest Leveton Drive.
The plan includes 544 new parking spaces (127 of which were previously approved for Building “G”) on the northern portion of the site with all employee traffic being directed to three existing driveways on Southwest 108th Avenue plus three existing driveways along with one new driveway on Southwest Leveton Drive that would be used for truck traffic.
Lam’s property currently includes seven buildings and parking on 75.96 acres of land in a Manufacturing Park Zone located on Southwest Leveton Drive, west of Southwest 108th Avenue and south of Southwest Tualatin Road.
After Lam requested a couple of delays for the Planning Commission and ARB to hear its application, the Planning Commission heard the application Aug. 20, with the staff report noting that “numerous public comments (Exhibit C) were received, which express concern over potential traffic affecting the residential properties north of SW Tualatin Road.” It added that both traffic and noise would be reviewed as part of the architectural review process, noting that the comments requested that the proposal limit employee access to Leveton Drive and not Southwest Tualatin Road and Southwest 108th Avenue.
Following the presentation and public comment, Planning Commission members said they could find no grounds to impose additional conditions of approval and felt comfortable relying on the city’s code enforcement process and the ARB hearing to handle the traffic and noise concerns. They voted 6 – 0 to approve the application.
The Sept. 10 ARB meeting drew a packed house, and City Engineer Mike McCarthy told the board that “the opposition is primarily to traffic and noise,” but that the “application meets the applicable code criteria of the Tualatin Development Code,” and he recommended approval of the application.
Jennifer Otterness, Lam Research director of site master planning, recapped the history of the project, saying significant changes were made to the site plan following a neighborhood meeting in June 2024 that included eliminating the proposed employee access/egress from Tualatin Road in June 2025.
A number of people spoke either in favor or in opposition to the project, and a good portion of the meeting was spent discussing noise levels that are currently being generated from the Lam campus or that would be generated in the future with the new facilities. ARB members received a printed copy of just half of a new noise report during the meeting, and the city attorney said the city had not evaluated or reached any conclusions on whether Lam’s prospective sound footprint complies with the city’s standards.
The ARB voted 6 – 0 on a motion to approve Lam’s application with the analysis and findings with corrections as stated by staff and the conditions of approval with corrections as read by staff and a new condition of approval as read into the record by staff. Two weeks later, on Sept. 25, an appeal of the decision was filed with the Tualatin City Council.
Over a year ago, a group of neighbors led by Brett Hamilton living along and north of Tualatin Road across from the Lam campus formed an organization called Save Tualatin Road advocating for no employee entrance/exit on Tualatin Road and the elimination of noise pollution and off-site sound impacts from Lam’s operations.
At the ARB meeting, Dana Krawczuk, land-use counsel with Stoel Rives, said that they hired a noise expert who reported that “the evidence and the data is predicting ongoing compliance” with city code.
However, at the same meeting, Hamilton, who has lived a couple blocks north of Tualatin Road opposite Lam since 2010, said, “A noise study performed earlier this year at night by a licensed acoustical engineer measured noise levels of 52dB at a private residence across the street from Lam’s gas plant. Therefore, Lam’s offsite noise impacts are in violation of both the Tualatin Development Code and the Tualatin Municipal Code.”
Since August 2024, Save Tualatin Road has raised more than $7,000 ($5,000 to cover legal expenses related to the appeal and $2,000 for signs, banners and hiring an acoustical engineer) and filed the appeal, which states that Lam’s land-use application does not meet all applicable criteria, including failure to send notice to CIOs as required by the Tualatin Development Code, violations of Manufacturing Park Zoning and the Tualatin Noice Ordinance, and the expanded north 108th entrance not meeting new driveway approach criteria.
As for alleged errors made by Lam, the appeal cites Lam for not holding a second neighborhood developer meeting after making a commitment to hold it, its traffic impact analysis not considering additional employee work shifts, and its claims that traffic and noise issues are beyond the scope of the ARB. The appeal cites the City of Tualatin for not providing the last three pages of Lam’s noise model to the ARB members at their hearing and unnecessary delays in releasing public records.
The City of Tualatin has set Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, as the date for the TUX appeal hearing.
