State’s economic development agency seeks incentive funds for $3.2B mystery project

Officials with the state’s economic development agency will appear before a budget panel Friday to ask for a nine-figure incentive package to close a deal on a potential advanced manufacturing project in Indiana.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. is seeking $120 million in performance-based incentive funds for a company planning to invest about $3.2 billion in a new facility that will create 1,400 high-wage jobs, according to the State Budget Committee’s agenda for its Friday meeting.

The IEDC declined to share details about the company, the nature of its work or the location of the facility. When asked about the project Tuesday, outgoing IEDC President Brad Chambers told IBJ that it is a “new project” that is “continued evidence of Indiana’s progress in attracting global business.”

The performance incentive grants would come from a $500 million IEDC “deal closing” fund that state lawmakers created in the most recent budget, but the IEDC can only access the money after the state budget committee, which is composed of lawmakers and state budget experts, reviews individual funding requests.

The incentive commitment would be based on project performance and compliance with job creation and wage metrics that will be included in the IEDC’s final agreements with the company, according to the agency.

This is the second time the IEDC has come before the panel with a big funding request since the part-time legislature adjourned April 28.

At its June meeting, the committee voted to approve the IEDC’s request for $122 million to acquire about 1,000 acres of land—about $120,000 an acre for mostly farmland—in Boone County for a potential $50 billion semiconductor plant investment. That land is in the southwest corner of the LEAP District, a planned 9,000-acre advanced manufacturing hub north and west of Lebanon along Interstate 65, according to state officials. LEAP is an acronym for “Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace.”

Rep. Greg Porter, the ranking Democrat on the State Budget Committee, said he isn’t familiar with the IEDC’s latest project.

“I know the last time Chairman Mishler got a preview,” said Rep. Greg Porter, the ranking Democrat on the State Budget Committee, referring to Sen. Ryan Mishler, the Republican committee chair. “As a Democrat, I never get any embargoed information.

“I understand how you want to secure something so it doesn’t become public, but there should be some transparency when it comes to state dollars,” he added.

Mishler couldn’t be reached for comment.

Porter and other Democrats on the committee have previously expressed frustration with a lack of transparency from IEDC officials.

The IEDC was formed in 2005 under Gov. Mitch Daniels as a quasi-public entity with the ability to operate like a business. Unlike other state agencies, it is a “unit of government and a body corporate and politic, not a state agency, but an independent instrumentality exercising essential public functions,” according to Indiana statute.

At the State Budget Committee’s June meeting, the panel also approved the IEDC’s request for $35 million in performance-based grants for an electric vehicle battery manufacturing operation locating in St. Joseph County; $10 million in grants to General Motors for their $632 million investments in its Fort Wayne Assembly plant; $16 million to acquire 290 acres of property in the LEAP District for a potential $3.2 billion data center; and $20.2 million to acquire 220 acres in Boone County for an INDOT interchange and upgrades to local roadway infrastructure in support of Eli Lilly’s planned expansion.