The city council approved an ordinance at its Monday meeting offering Vadata an incentive package worth about $5.6 million for the first phase of the project, Hilliard Mayor Don Schonardt said.
Vadata is a subsidiary of the online retailing giant that is part of Amazon Web Services.
“They have investigated several sites in Hilliard,” Schonardt said. “But they have not indicated they are coming here.”
Dublin also has offered Vadata incentives to locate there, including land valued at $6.8?million and performance incentives worth up to $500,000 over 10 years.
Hilliard’s incentives include a 15-year, 100 percent real-estate tax abatement valued at $5.4 million, plus wage-tax rebates and the waiving of fees for permits that total another $200,000, the mayor said.
The Hilliard and Dublin offers come on the heels of incentives from the Ohio Tax Credit Authority worth an estimated $81 million for the complete project, which would cost $1.1?billion and create 120 jobs that would pay an average of about $80,000 a year.
Amazon.com officials declined to comment but, in a statement, said the company is “constantly looking for opportunities to expand our geographic coverage ... There are 10 (Amazon Web Services) regions around the world, four of which are in the U.S., and we are constantly evaluating a long list of additional target countries and U.S. locations.”
According to Hilliard’s legislation, Vadata plans to invest $225 million to $300 million in the first phase of the project and create 25 jobs.
In addition to these jobs, Schonardt said he thinks other information-technology companies would locate near the data center, creating more jobs.
“Vadata has two major decisions,” he said. “The first is they have to decide if they want to come to Ohio, which they have not yet done.”
If it selected Ohio, the company would then have to decide where in the state to locate.
“They clearly have options,” Schonardt said. “We want to position ourselves to be competitive, and we believe we have.”
©2014 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)
