Both Greensboro and Durham had major economic development announcements this week.
Tuesday, March 16, Greensboro announced that Syngenta was not leaving, and Thursday, March 18, Durham announced that it had been chosen as the site of a new Google engineering hub.
Greensboro offered Syngenta about $1.7 million, matched by Guilford County, to entice the company not to take its 650 employees at an average wage of $107,000 per year somewhere else. This week Syngenta announced it would be spending about $68 million to build a new office building and renovate existing buildings on its campus on Swing Road in Greensboro.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said she was “thrilled” that Syngenta had decided to remain and expand in Greensboro.
The leadership in Durham on Thursday expressed similar delight following the announcement that Google had chosen Durham as the site for a new cloud engineering hub that will eventually provide jobs for more than 1,000 people. The plan calls for Google to lease space in downtown Durham until it finds a permanent location. The Google networking and storage engineering function will initially hire 110 employees and is projected to be at 150 employees by the end of the year.
The Durham operation is expected to become one of Google’s top five engineering hubs in the country according to the News & Observer.
Google did not request incentives for this major economic development project in Durham. Google has had a small presence in the Triangle area for years and currently employs about 600 people across North Carolina.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Durham Mayor Steve Schewel released a video announcement welcoming Google to Durham.
The Durham expansion is part of a $7 billion investment Google is making in offices and data centers across the country that will create 10,000 new full-time jobs this year according to a Google press release.
So, Greensboro, North Carolina’s third largest city, is celebrating not losing 650 high paying jobs and Durham, North Carolina’s fourth largest city is celebrating 1,000 new high paying jobs.
And Nancy Vaughn is just “thrilled”. Unbelievable.
Durham and Greensboro are similar in many respects, but with one major difference. Greensboro tries to sweep its corruption under the rug, while Durham celebrates theirs.
We should celebrate the world’s largest source of mass surveillance, censorship and political manipulation of search results is not in our midst. Wake county is welcome to them – a perfect fit!
Define “eventually”….
Only the Rhino would come up with a way to complain about not losing a large employer in Guilford. This whole “news”paper is an op-Ed.
Yet you’re still here, so they must be doing something right.
Rtp is well known since when it was built in the sixties with rtp being listed as money mag top places to live while the triad is a ripped off name of rtp but had the crime and urban droll.
This article pretty much ‘splains the difference. Greensboro has to bribe Syngenta some 3.4 million dollars, with our money, to remain here. Possibly to hire more security personnel as the city/county will not provide enough police protection. Whereas the the city of Durham offers a vibrant community with a better-educated work force.
For people who are thinking of living here, don’t. If I were more flexible, I would leave this County. You can have your little socialist paradise, which will work until you run out of other peoples money. Can you say NYC?
Wait until Syngenta figures out they have to abide by MWBE rules on the $68 million upgrades. Got a feeling that’ll be a deal breaker. Since the demands outpace the number of decent contractors in the MSA. Which by the way the city had to expand in hopes of finding some decent contractors. The City doesn’t disclose that information up front. It’s in the fine print..
Syngenta can read.
Mr. Hammer,
Bravo! Your clever approach and use of the age old Dickens novel – linking the Aristocracy of the past with the diveristy issues of corporate America today. Maybe Durham can rebrand itself with the whitewash provided by Google.