Jan. 27—ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Defense contractor Boeing is eyeing a 30,000-square-foot addition to its campus near St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The St. Louis County Council unanimously endorsed incentives for the expansion on Tuesday evening. The bill will be up for final passage next week.
The company said the $45 million capital investment would enhance its "advanced manufacturing" capabilities at its north St. Louis County campus, where the company builds fighter jets and develops other products for the military.
The project calls for building a new 30,000-square-foot "operations facility" and additional equipment for the new complex. It could add as many as 30 jobs to Boeing's campus and begin construction as soon as the third quarter, with construction expected to stretch into late 2022.
St. Louis County would issue $45 million in industrial revenue bonds to help finance the project and facilitate a property tax abatement. The bond transaction would provide a 50% real and personal property tax abatement worth $3.1 million over the life of the incentive, said a spokeswoman for the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, which vets incentive requests in St. Louis County. A sales tax exemption for construction materials would save the company another $420,000.
The provision authorizing the local incentive was introduced at the beginning of the month amid a bitter leadership fight on the St. Louis County Council. Councilmembers Lisa Clancy and Rita Heard Days, both Democrats, are vying for the position of chair for the upcoming year. The dispute has split the council into factions of critics and allies of St. Louis County Executive Sam Page. Clancy, a close Page ally, held the chair position last year and has sued to overturn a 4-3 vote this month making Days the chair.
One meeting where the Boeing incentives were on the calendar was derailed because of the fight. A Boeing spokesman said the project is still in planning stages and its timeline is unaffected.
Boeing's fortunes in St. Louis, where its defense, space and security arm is concentrated, have improved in recent years as it won major new Pentagon contracts that will keep its assembly lines going well into the next decade. In just the last three years it has won contracts for two new planes — the T-7 Air Force trainer jet and MQ-25 Navy refueling drone — in addition to contracts to upgrade older F/A-18 Super Hornets and build more F-15s for a military that was on a spending spree during the Trump administration.
"As we focus on vaccine distribution, we also are working to rebuild the economy and Boeing is helping us in those efforts," Page said in a statement following the vote.
Boeing has about 16,000 employees at its regional factories, a jump of some 2,000 in just a few years.
___
(c)2021 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
