Harrisburg and surrounding counties will try to convince Amazon.com to locate its new headquarters on the grounds of the former State Hospital.
Harrisburg officials confirmed late Tuesday that the city is participating in a joint, regional application for the Amazon.com headquarters project, which promises to bring as many as 50,000 jobs to a city in North America.
Jackie Parker, Harrisburg’s director of Community and Economic Development, said that the city’s partners in the bid are Dauphin, York, Lancaster, Cumberland and Lebanon counties. She also confirmed that the application will pitch the former Harrisburg State Hospital grounds off of Cameron Street as the future site of the Amazon campus.
The 295-acre property currently is owned by the state Department of General Services, but consultants hired earlier this year recommended its sale, and most state workers already have been relocated off the sprawling site.
In what has been described as the “Olympics of the Business World,” online retail giant Amazon.com announced earlier this month that it would open a public bidding process for a new, $4 billion second headquarters. The announcement sent mayors and business leaders across the country scrambling to market their cities.
“This type of project is a game changer for any region with huge employment opportunities for executives, managers, software engineers, attorneys, accountants and technical/administrative jobs,” said a statement by the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC, which Parker said would lead the application effort.
One of the major components of the application is presenting a package of benefits and tax incentives. In Pennsylvania, those benefits are codified at the municipal level – one factor that complicates a regional application.
Eight acres of the State Hospital property are in Harrisburg city limits, but the vast majority is in Susquehanna Township.
Susquehanna Township Manager David Kratzer said that the township currently has no tax breaks or incentives in place. He added that he and members of the application team have considered options such as a LERTA tax abatement district or Tax Increment Financing district (TIF).
The township will have to clear any incentive proposals with its local taxing bodies, including the board of commissioners and school district. Kratzer couldn’t say when those public discussions would take place. According to the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC, regional partners are still pulling workforce data and evaluating site selection criteria.
Harrisburg’s portion of the property would be covered by its LERTA tax abatement program. Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that he is in favor of the city offering incentives, since he believes the long-term benefits of such a major project would pay the region back over time.
He said that Harrisburg’s strengths include its location on the East Coast and its proximity to the Route 81 corridor, as well as the availability of the State Hospital grounds for immediate redevelopment.
He conceded that the region’s population could count against it. Amazon specified that it’s seeking a metro area with at least 1 million people, but the regional partners do come close to that collectively, Papenfuse said. He also said that the lack of a leading research university in the area could be perceived as a weakness.
Despite these potential limitations, Papenfuse said that Harrisburg is committed to submitting an application by the Oct. 19 deadline.
“I can’t really envision a scenario in which the city wouldn’t be interested in moving forward,” he said. “This is a great opportunity to advertise central Pennsylvania and Harrisburg.”
He also said that the application’s sponsors do not often work together on projects of this magnitude, and he hopes the cooperation could promote regional unity.
“Anything we can do to promote regional cooperation is a good thing,” Papenfuse said. “We have too many artificial divides, and the process of planning for an application like this can bring us closer together.”
