sip good for business

The Oklahoma City Economic Development Trust and City Council recently approved a combined $7.2 million in incentives for Boeing Co. and Paycom Inc. These economic development incentives will be used to expand the two companies’ facilities within the state and provide new jobs for the city. The city has spent more than a year working closely with the two companies to negotiate their future growth here.

The incentive for Boeing demonstrates how OKC is growing as an international player and gaining recognition for its business-friendly practices. Boeing’s response to the incentive is to build a new $80 million, 290,000-square-foot facility near its current plant. The expansion is projected to have an economic impact of about $640 million.

Boeing’s new facility will include a 150,000-square-foot lab space for research and development. The facility will provide a substantial number of the 900 new jobs projected to be created by Boeing. These high-skill engineering jobs offer an average annual salary of $90,000. Oklahoma City’s Strategic Investment Program will not pay out Boeing’s $6 million incentive until the company has reached the negotiated job creation benchmarks.

Paycom will receive $1.2 million towards its expansion in the Greater Oklahoma City metro area. Paycom considered building a new office in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but the city’s incentive helped keep the company here in Oklahoma. Paycom plans to build a new $14 million building and purchase an additional $2 million worth of new equipment for its headquarters. The company expects the expansion will provide an additional 423 new jobs. That means real progress for OKC instead of jobs headed over state lines...

Read the full article here in the May 20th edition of The Journal Record.