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Considering the purchases by Amazon in Worcester and environs the past year:
- Goddard Drive
- Greendale Mall
- Charlton 300 million distribution center
- Purchased warehouse in Westboro purchased for 65 million
- there are others that we are forgetting about
Think if we ever pitched them a $100,000,000 warehouse funded by the taxpayers, they would have come to Worcester and paid real estate taxes/market lease and a ton of jobs ???
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in the U.S. That's about 130 $80,000+ per year jobs. I think the developer is currently negotiating with two other possible tenants. Also, thanks to a $200 million gift the Chan Medical School is now constructing a new research building that will employ several hundred researchers.
The Amazon idea is interesting, but I'm not sure if you're talking about an office building or a fulfillment warehouse. The City did try to lure the Amazon offices here several years ago. They offered to give them a huge piece of land off of Rt. 20. They also agreed to waive all real estate taxes. They put together a video and other promotional material, but Amazon basically threw it in the garbage.
A warehouse wouldn't create the economic spin-off we're seeing with the ballpark.
A bunch of 18-25 year old kids making $15 per hour aren't going to be supporting
Lock 50 or Russo's. They're
not going to be paying $15 for a Nitrogen fueled ice cream at the Worcester Market.
Commercial and retail usually happens after residential. I think the apartments at CitySquare came online before the hotel, restaurants and retail.
I think a logical move for Amazon would be to build a distribution facility at the airport. Based on what I've seen the airport doesn't have any future as a passenger facility. Maybe Massport should just hand over the keys to them.
The ballpark has been open for 9 months and it has helped attract about $46 million in economic spin-off. We'll probably see that multiplied by 4 in five years. All the fancy accounting statements and terms won't change that.
Again Massport has lots of monies to cover any losses from ORH and it cost the Worcester taxpayers nothing.
In ten years the airport will be thriving and we will be dipping into General Funds to meet bond payments.
WBJ reported 97 million economic spinoff in 2019.
When this 84,000,000 hits the city tax rolls let us know
If so.... That is not in the DIF and will help pay any of the bonds.
Remember only increased revenues from the DIF can go to the bond payments. In fiscal 2022, we question if there will be any increase in real estate taxes in the DIF?
We are discussing how this project was sold to the taxpayers as being "revenue neutral". That is what the initial proforma depicted.
If you take monies from outside the DIF to pay the bond payments, it is not "revenue neutral". That is the point here.