St. Louis County is one step closer to giving Boeing millions in tax breaks for a proposed $1.8 billion project at Lambert airport.
County council members voted 4-1 Tuesday evening to move the bill forward. Final approval could come as soon as next week.
The vote came on the heels of the St. Louis Airport Commission’s approval of Boeing’s expansion project, which would allow the company to lease about 158 acres of land at Lambert.
Executives have not detailed what the company plans to build but said the project would create about 500 jobs when completed near existing Boeing facilities.
“Boeing is in a precarious situation because it is right now trying to bid for the next level of airplanes, fighter planes,” said Councilwoman Rita Heard Days, who sponsored the bill. “They need to be able to compete, and this legislation will help them do that.”
A portion of the aircraft manufacturer’s facility would be located in Days’ district. She said the county should work to keep Boeing’s businesses, which are the largest employer in the county.
Boeing would receive a 50% reduction in real estate and personal property taxes for 10 years, an estimated saving of $155 million.
Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, who cast the lone vote against the incentives, said she’s conflicted about giving Boeing tax breaks to keep it from expanding somewhere else.
“It feels wrong to me that we have to bribe companies to stay in our community and if our bribe isn't big enough, they're going to go someplace else,” Dunaway said. “I just don't like the idea of these types of incentives when so many other people and parts of our community are really suffering for the kind of investment that our tax dollars should be contributing to.”
The first phase of the project would utilize the airport’s Brownleigh property, a portion of its northern tract that is the former site of McDonnell Douglas buildings. The manufacturer could also begin a second phase of the project. Boeing initially would pay the airport about $2.6 million a year during the first phase, with a potential increase after the seventh year of the lease based on consumer price indexing.
Business leaders have championed the proposal, saying it would build up the region and bring in more jobs.
Dunaway said she would be open to supporting the legislation if Boeing makes clear that it will invest more in the region and participate in more public-private partnerships.
