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March 29, 2008

Whitestown grants abatements for Amazon project

Products such as books, CDs, videos and toys will be brought in by trucks

By Jennifer Dawson/For The Lebanon Reporter

Whitestown — The Whitestown Town Council voted unanimously Friday to grant two different 10-year tax abatements to bring Amazon.com to town.

Amazon.com will use an existing 630,000-square-foot building as a distribution center. The building is on Anson Boulevard in the Anson development, and is called Building No. 1.

Products such as books, CDs, videos and toys will be brought in by trucks, making the site’s location within the Interstate 65 corridor a top choice for Amazon.

Before the town council voted, Boone County Economic Redevelopment Commission Executive Director Kristie McKillip urged the council to support the project and to consider giving a maximum incentive. McKillip also presented a letter of support from Lebanon School Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor.

The first abatement is a real property tax abatement for Duke Realty Corp. which owns Building No. 1 on 36 acres in the Anson development. The abatement, starting in 2008, will save Duke Realty about $586,000. The company will pay a total of about $1 million in real property taxes during the abatement period. Craig Anderson of Duke Realty said the company will invest about $6.5 million in real property improvements.

These improvements include:

• Building a parking lot;

• Building out 35,000 square feet of office space in the building;

• Adding 135 windows to the building; and

• Making road improvements to County Road 450 South and County Road 500 East.

The second abatement is a personal property tax abatement for Amazon to purchase equipment for operations. The abatement will save Amazon about $1.4 million in personal property taxes during the abatement period, while Amazon will pay about $1.6 million.

Amazon.com representative Arthur Valdez said the company will invest about $34 million in the distribution center. He said the company will start hiring for hourly positions in June and management positions in the next 1-1/2 months. The company will hire about 400 hourly workers and 30 to 34 managers, he said. The projected employment in three years is 1,200 employees. The distribution center is set to start receiving goods in September and to begin shipping in October.

Besides the economic benefits of the center, Valdez emphasized the company’s belief in social responsibility, saying that Amazon encourages its employees and leaders to become involved in community organizations. Valdez’ mention of community stewardship impressed Town Council President Jason Tribby. He said he was happy to hear about plans for the company to be involved with the community.

Valdez said the distribution center will be one of the seventh-largest operations in the United States, and in three years will become a 24/7 operation. He said the Seattle-based company has operations in Asia and Europe and had a revenue of $15 billion in 2007.

“It makes sense for us — the geographic location will allow us to serve the customers in the Midwest region more effectively,” Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said.

She said the center would be focused on serving customers in the region, but international orders would also be filled there.

“It’s another tremendous economic victory for the state,” Gov. Mitch Daniels said. “We will pause for about five minutes to savor this job capture and then we’ll go back searching for the next one.”

Smith said she did not have information about wages at the new facility, but said they would be “competitive” with other jobs in the region.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation said it would provide Amazon with performance-based tax credits and training grants.

Amazon opened a distribution center in Munster in late 2007.

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