ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. (WNDU) – Picture this. This time, Amazon was waiting for a package.
On Tuesday evening, documents outlining the financial details and corporate commitments of a contract to build an $11 billion Amazon Web Services data center in St. Joseph County received final approval.
The package was unanimously approved this morning by the St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners and members of the St. Joseph County Redevelopment Commission.
The package then received the final stamp of approval from the St. Joseph County Council, which voted 7-2 in favor of four different bills. The only dissenting votes came from Amy Drake and Mark Root.
Although the agreement was necessary, Amazon Web Services did not wait long for it. The latest images from the construction site show the progress of the first of around 22 buildings planned for the campus.
“By the end of this year, four of the buildings should be completed and operational in the first quarter of next year,” St. Joseph County Economic Development Director Bill Schalliol told WNDU 16 News Now. “And then over the next 10 to 15 years, they’ll just continue to build.”
Although Amazon promises to hire 400 full-time employees here, more jobs may be created in St. Joseph County than expected.
“It will be 400 jobs on site,” Schalliol said. “The commitments in the documents are for 400 jobs, but the state has an agreement with AWS for 1,000 jobs, so we’re expecting 400 jobs. Over time, 600 more jobs will be added, so we’re actually expecting a thousand jobs on site, but probably a lot more as additional buildings continue to be built.”
“We’re really excited about what we’ve accomplished, and we just think it’s such a great project that it’s going to be hard for us to say no,” said County Commissioner Carl Baxmeyer.
The commissioners were accused of “giving away the deal” by granting up to $4 billion in tax abatements, but Baxmeyer pointed out that real estate tax abatements are only granted at 50% for ten years, while 100% is quite common.
“But we must remember that they will pay. They will be our largest taxpayer, that’s for sure. And what’s more, their tax payments will be over $20 million every year. That’s about a quarter of our annual budget, a little less than a quarter of our annual budget,” Baxmeyer said.
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