City Council approves incentive for World View

The Tucson City Council approved a $479,000 incentive package for high-altitude balloon company World View.

The council members voted 6-1 at their regular meeting Tuesday to allow World View Enterprises to take advantage of the city’s Primary Jobs Incentive Program.

The Tucson-based company manufactures helium-filled balloons and capsules that can carry passengers and scientific payloads into low orbit.

The incentives offered in the city program include waiving building permit fees. The city also will put up to 100 percent of construction sales tax revenue toward infrastructure improvements or job training related to the new facility.

Construction sales tax revenue from the company’s new facility would come to about $150,000, which the city would put toward job training. Another $329,000 would pay for water infrastructure for the facility, according to a memo from City Manager Michael Ortega to the council members.

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Council member Steve Kozachik, who cast the only “nay” vote,” said he supported the project, but voiced his concerns that the company would not create enough high-paying jobs to qualify for the incentive. He also worried the company’s investment was in equipment, which the company could take with it, if it decided to leave Tucson.

In order to qualify for the incentive program, employers must invest at least $5 million in facilities, create 25 new jobs that pay 25 percent more than the average local salary, and cover 75 percent of employee health premiums, Ortega wrote.

World View qualifies for the incentive, Ortega wrote, because it will create 448 new jobs over five years, including 325 jobs that pay more than the local average wage. The company also will meet the health insurance requirement and invest $32 million in equipment.

The development agreement the council will consider at a later date includes “clawback provisions” in case the company fails to meet the conditions for the incentive, Ortega wrote.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved, by a 4-1 vote, a $14.5 million economic development agreement with World View in January. The agreement calls for the county to build south of the Tucson airport a headquarters, manufacturing facility, and spaceport. World View would pay the funds back through 20 years of lease payments totaling nearly $24 million.