Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma said lawmakers could move an incentives bill “expeditiously” to attract Amazon’s proposed second headquarters, if necessary, but he wouldn’t be in favor of doing what Wisconsin did to lure Foxconn.
The Boone County town will soon be home to the headquarters for Little League International’s Central Region, one of five U.S. offices.
An Indy Chamber spokesman said Wednesday morning that the bid “has been sent as of last night to arrive ahead of the Oct. 19 deadline.”
Amazon’s announcement last week that its future second headquarters will create 50,000 new jobs with an average annual compensation of $100,000 have cities across the country clamoring to submit bids. But there’s a short timetable, with proposals due Oct. 19.
State economic development officials won’t comment on whether they plan to submit a proposal for the $5 billion development, but a local site-selection expert said pursuing Amazon is “too good of an opportunity” for the state to pass up.
The owner of the former General Motors stamping plant property plans to solicit bids for the site as early as next month and is expecting proposals to be much bolder than previous pitches.
The plant closed in 2007, taking 300 jobs. It opened in 1909 and at one point produced all the gas used for heating Marion County.
The east-side factory used to employ 1,500 dry-cell battery makers, but has been abandoned for decades.
The company will locate in the Lebanon Business Park and pay salaries “well above $20 per hour,” an economic development official said.
Negotiations with property owners to buy a few parcels of land in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood appears to have stalled. City-County Council members this week will discuss exercising eminent domain.
The city’s investment in the retention and expansion of more mature, existing businesses has been paying off.
The entity marketing the former General Motors stamping plant site is putting the property back on the market after plans for an outdoor concert venue on about half the 102 acres fell through.
A surge of people retiring from the fields has created a talent shortage, and recruiting and training enough workers remain vexing challenges for companies, according to executives at an IBJ event Thursday.
Salesforce.com appears to have scrapped plans to build its own downtown headquarters building and instead is seeking a huge block of space in an office tower to satisfy its aggressive growth plans.
While businesses consider many factors before choosing where to locate, economic development experts say a community’s openness to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals increasingly is one of them.
Gov. Mike Pence returned to the New York area on Wednesday for a two-day jobs mission to pitch Indiana as a lower cost place to do business.
Sirmax and OMR Automotive, both suppliers to the automotive industry, plan to build plants in Speedway and Anderson and together could create up to 110 jobs over the next several years.
Approval of the deal is essentially guaranteed, as Cummins and Indianapolis officials together have heralded the downtown project and its potential economic benefit.
CEO Doug Oberhelman said Tuesday that government overhauls and an aggressive economic development policy have made the state among the most attractive for investment.
Hendricks County finds pay dirt pitching skills of racing industry to medical device manufacturers.
