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Incentives vital to some, others say firms will move regardless

There’s nothing unusual about New Hanover County writing checks to major local businesses. Last year, the county paid out $831,000 to four companies: Guilford Mills, Verizon, General Electric and Fortron.
But the scope of the proposed incentives for GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy is on a higher level. Under the deal, to be discussed at a public hearing Monday, the company would receive $10 million of taxpayer money over 12 years - or an average annual payout about equal to the total that all companies received from the county last year.
The payment to GE-Hitachi is the largest that Scott Satterfield, head of Wilmington Industrial Development, said he has worked on since joining the economic development organization in the early 1990s. But it’s also the deal that promises to give the most back - 900 well-paying jobs and $900 million of investments, said Satterfield, who spearheaded the effort for the incentive offer.
He also led the effort to offer fiber manufacturer Invista $3 million over six years in return for investing $200 million in its U.S. 421 plant and creating 50 jobs, an offer also subject to a public hearing Monday.
Cumulatively studies show an annual economic impact from both projects of $1 billion, Satterfield said. Still, incentives aren’t such a good deal if you’re paying for what you would have gotten for free. GE-Hitachi says it is evaluating where to locate very large investments in its nuclear business, a decision in which its says incentives will play a critical role.
But having already moved its nuclear headquarters to Castle Hayne in 2003, and with an expected boom in nuclear reactors spurring them on, wouldn’t they expand here anyway? (more…)

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 6:49 am and is filed under Daily News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.