Describing the investment as one that will provide positive impacts to the community as well as the county’s tax base, New Hanover County commissioners voted 4-1 Monday to award $325,000 in cash incentives to Live Oak Bank for further investment in its facilities here.
The fast-growing company will be given $65,000 a year for five years in return for investment of at least $16 million in taxable real and personal property, as well as the addition of 120 new full-time jobs with average annual salaries of $80,000.
Scott Satterfield, CEO of Wilmington Business Development, described such investment as “a significant economic development opportunity,” adding that employees earning that level of salary are the ones who invest themselves in the community.
“Those are folks that buy cars, buy houses, eat in our restaurants, participate on local nonprofit boards and give heavily to those endeavors,” he said. “That’s what we need to be encouraging.”
Satterfield told the board that Live Oak, which just recently opened a new headquarters building on Tiburon Drive off Independence Boulevard, plans to build a new corporate facility that would house additional operations for the bank, as well as offices for its sister company nCino, a software development firm.
“The success of nCino and Live Oak Bancshares has caused the company to consider another major investment in this area,” Satterfield said, adding that of the bank’s 130 employees and nCino’s 52, more than 80 percent were recruited and hired locally.
Commissioners praised the company as the type of homegrown success story—as Wilmington Chamber of Commerce President Connie-Majure Rhett put it in a hearing—that the county wants to encourage.
Calling the company a “green business,” Commissioner Jonathan Barfield said: “To see the folks that are working there that are earning a significant income but also adding back to the tax base here in our community, volunteering in our community as well—this, for me, is what it’s all about.
“And when you talk about incentives, it really is just a coupon, so to speak, to where you’re not paying the full value for a product that you buy,” Barfield said. “It’s not like we’re giving anyone any money; they’re just going to pay a little less on their taxes for a couple of years, but at the same time provide more jobs in our community.”
Two people spoke in support of the incentives in a public hearing Monday: Majure-Rhett, and Scott Sullivan, chairman of the Wilmington-based Coalition for Economic Advancement.
“We need jobs,” Sullivan said. “We’re losing two major manufacturers this year in this region, and that’s going to put a strain on our economy.
“This is a positive impact on this community; not just tax base,” he said. “We need to incent the businesses that are here and the ones that may come in the future, because it’s going to be our future.”
Chairman Woody White noted the board had received emails from people in support and opposed to the incentives, which would be given in the form of an industrial investment grant, the funds for which would come out of the county’s general fund.
Earlier this year, the board awarded half of a $500,000 investment grant for employment screening firm Castle Branch, with the City of Wilmington covering the other half. The grant for Live Oak Bank would be likewise shared with the city, which will consider providing $250,000 at its meeting Tuesday night.
Related story: New Hanover to take up cash incentives for Live Oak Bank; city council to follow
New Hanover County has also awarded $875,000 in incentives to General Electric for expansion of its facilities near Castle Hayne. That grant, like the others, was likewise timed around a five-year period with benchmarks to be met.
Satterfield said such encouragement is necessary in order to compete for economic development.
“Everything is competitive,” he said. “If you look at the realities of where Live Oak Bank and their operations could be located, they spend an immense amount of time flying employees all over the country. A central U.S. location would make a lot of sense.
“They have a lot of business on the West Coast; they have a lot of business across the country. But the bottom line is any community—if I am working in Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Denver, Colorado—this is the kind of company that I want in my area.
“This is a minor investment,” he said. “We are allowing this company, in essence, to keep a little bit of its money. I’m pretty sure that, right off the bat, the amount of tax collections exceeds what the county would be allowing this company to keep for five years. And then, after that, it’s all the county’s.
“We have to be in the business of encouraging companies,” he said, noting every other county in the country is vying for businesses and jobs. “Everywhere we travel, every community knows they’ve got to be serious about economic development. They know they’re going to have to do shared risk and shared reward to encourage companies to be in their area.
“This sends a message to existing business, it sends a message to the rest of the world, that New Hanover County is serious about shared risk, shared reward and economic opportunity in this area,” he said.
Commissioner Brian Berger voted against the motion, without additional comment.
Jonathan Spiers is a reporter for Port City Daily. He can be reached at (910) 772-6313 or [email protected]. On Twitter: @jrspiers
