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The District submitted four sites in October for the Amazon HQ2 competition and has spent tens of thousands of dollars marketing its bid, but until now D.C. has remained silent on the financial incentives it offered the e-commerce giant.
Following a Freedom of Information Act request by WAMU, the District revealed some details about the scale of its incentive package in a heavily redacted response obtained by the Washington Business Journal.
D.C.'s proposed incentives include reimbursements of up to $30K per new job Amazon fills with military veterans; up to $7,500 per worker who moves to D.C.; a five-year corporate franchise tax exemption capped at $15M; a five-year property tax freeze on any building Amazon occupies at least half of; a 10-year exemption on personal property taxes on qualified property and equipment; and a sales tax exemption in perpetuity on its investment in new qualified purchases.
While the total value of the incentive package remains unclear, the package appears to be much larger than the $60M in incentives it gave The Advisory Board to remain in D.C in 2015. Maryland has reportedly put forward more than $1B in incentives and cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, have each offered packages in the billions of dollars.
The winning city, expected to be announced later this year, would be the beneficiary of a $5B investment from Amazon that would create 50,000 jobs and fill 8M SF of office space. The tech company received 238 submissions by its Oct. 19 deadline.
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