Tax abatement might lure Amgen; New law creates special districts. Biopharmaceutical company is looking at Valley.
BYLINE: By John L. Micek Of The Morning Call
DATELINE: HARRISBURG
Gov. Ed Rendell has signed off on legislation aimed at luring pharmaceutical giant Amgen to the Lehigh Valley.
The company, which employs 17,000 people worldwide, is eyeing land in Hanover Township, Northampton County, and along the Route 100 industrial corridor in Lehigh County for a warehouse and distribution center that would eventually employ 38 people, company and administration officials said.
The legislation Rendell signed Monday would create four special taxing districts that would offer 15-year state and local tax abatements for companies looking to relocate to Pennsylvania.
To qualify for one of the so-called "Strategic Development Areas," companies would have to promise to create or maintain at least 500 jobs and make $45 million in capital investments within three years.
Although the Amgen project would not hit that minimum job mark, its estimated $50 million price tag would trigger the designation. Rendell said the company was offered the break in the hopes it would build other facilities in the state.
"This is a very important weapon in our economic development arsenal," he said, adding later, "Amgen is the kind of company we want in Pennsylvania."
An Amgen lobbyist could not say when the company might settle on a site in the Lehigh Valley, but assuming all goes according to plan, the estimated 138,000-square-foot Amgen warehouse could open by 2008.
Despite Monday's bill-signing, an Amgen spokeswoman stressed that the company was still a long way from moving to Pennsylvania.
"We are very interested in the Lehigh Valley as a potential location," spokeswoman Mary Klem said.
Local governments would have to agree to the districts, which would range between 10 and 1,500 acres. The program would be administered through the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
The districts are similar to the state's Keystone Opportunity Zones, which offer tax incentives to companies that relocate to rehabilitated brownfields. The new districts have raised eyebrows because they offer tax incentives to develop so-called "greenfields," or properties that are not environmentally troubled.
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ABOUT AMGEN
What it is: Biopharmaceutical company
Headquarters: Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Chief executive officer: Kevin Sharer
Year founded: 1980
Employees: 17,000
Revenue in most recent fiscal year: $12.4 billion
In the news: Company might open a Lehigh Valley distribution center.
Sources: Amgen, Morning Call research