The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority approved a proposal Thursday that would give $10.25 million in Kentucky business incentives to a subsidiary of Amazon.com, should it choose to open a $20-million customer support center in Winchester.
To receive the full tax credit from the state, the company, AMZN.wacs Inc, would have to create 550 full-time jobs and 600 part-time and seasonal jobs, said Todd Denham, executive director of the Winchester-Clark County Industrial Authority. The jobs would have an average hourly pay of $20.33 with benefits.
The 70,000-square-foot center, Denham said, would be built on a seven-acre site to be determined.
The agency also approved a $250,000 economic development grant agreement for the project. That money would also be issued to AMZN from the state should it choose to locate in Winchester. At a Winchester Board of Commissioners meeting last week, commissioners voted to approve a resolution to allow the City of Winchester to enter into the agreement.
Because the City of Winchester entered into a confidentiality agreement with AMZN, the project was dubbed Project Rock until the company name could be released.
Denham said he and local leaders have been working on the project since October. The approval of the business incentives, he said, does not mean it’s a done deal.
“We are still working with the client to continue this process, and we hope to continue to move forward to have this project come to fruition very soon,” he said. “This is going to have such an impact on our community, our region, the state, and we’re very excited, and there’s a whole lot of people that have worked very hard to get us this far, so ... we hope to have an announcement on this sometime in the near future.”
Later in the meeting, the agency approved a proposal that would give $500,000 in Kentucky business incentives to Taica Corporation, a Japanese manufacturing company, should it choose to invest $8 million to locate to a facility in Winchester.
To receive the full tax credit from the state, Taica would have to create 30 full-time jobs with an average hourly pay of $20 with benefits.
“This is just another piece of the puzzle that we try to put together in order to help make the project happen,” Denham said.
Taica would lease and refurbish the former Gecom building in the Industrial Park, Denham said. That building has been vacant for about two years, since Gecom left.
The building is about 61,000 square feet, and the company would manufacture cubic printing for the automobile industry.
Contact Katie Perkowski at kperkowski@winchestersun.com or follow her on Twitter, @TheSunKatie.
