Office incentives policy pays off

High Point Enterprise (NC)

Aug. 29—HIGH POINT — High Point's targeted downtown office incentives policy was short-lived, but did what it was designed to do.

It helped draw insurance company Key Risk as the anchor tenant for a new food hall and office building beside Truist Point stadium with a $1.17 million incentives offer.

The company confirmed recently that it will relocate its 81 employees from Greensboro to 275 N. Elm St. in early 2022.

Typically, High Point requires a business to create new jobs or make capital investments that grow the tax base in order to receive cash grant incentives.

Key Risk plans to lease the space it will occupy, and most of its incentives would be in the form of rent assistance. It would not have to create any new jobs to receive the incentives.

This is only possible under the downtown incentives policy, which was adopted in July 2020 and stopped taking new applicants July 31, 2021.

Greensboro's top economic development official said there were no hard feelings about incentives being offered to a company to move to a neighboring city.

"The goal was to keep the company in the Triad region, so I think competitively, we were working together to make sure that they stayed in the Greensboro-High Point and Guilford County area," said Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. "I think this is very similar to the Fresh Market project where we worked together to make sure that the Fresh Market stayed in Guilford County."

The City Council in November 2019 authorized $301,000 for the upscale grocery chain to keep its corporate headquarters in Greensboro when it was looking at leaving the region.

Greensboro, Guilford County and the state also approved incentives for the Fresh Market, which has no physical presence or jobs in High Point.

The city has not paid any money to the Fresh Market because its incentives contract is not yet finalized, according to Sandy Dunbeck, director of the High Point Economic Development Corp.

"I do think High Point wanted there to be some ability to get a physical presence from the Fresh Market with regard to their incentives," Christensen said. "But again, I would say incentives are part of the equation. Really, the big part of the equation is working together to make sure that the company stays in Guilford County or the Triad and we don't lose them to an out-of-state community or something along those lines."

High Point landed one other potential project under the downtown office incentives policy: RUD Fleet Corp., which is considering locating at 209 N. Main St.

The council in April authorized up to $320,000 of incentives for this transportation company, which would create 20 jobs if it moves its corporate office to this location from its existing office on Eastchester Drive.

The company has not announced a decision yet.

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