Town and County Extend Amazon Incentives Grant
SMITHFIELD – Johnston County Commissioners and the Smithfield Town Council both have approved grant extensions for the new Amazon facility, which failed to open this year as originally planned.
In May 2021, local officials and Amazon announced the new 620,000 square foot warehousing facility would be operation in 2022 and employee 500 people with a starting wage of $15 an hour.
Amazon received tax grant incentives for a 7 year period beginning in 2023. It required the giant retail firm to make a $100 million investment in the plant and infrastructure and create a minimum of 500 new permanent full-time jobs. Amazon has fulfilled the financial investment portion of the grant but hasn’t opened the facility or hired workers.
Commissioners and council members agreed to extend the grant an additional two years, starting in 2025 instead of 2023.
Mike Limburg with Amazon appeared before the Smithfield town board Nov. 14 confirming the company still plans to locate in Smithfield. Due to economic conditions and the global retail supply chain, Limburg said there have been delays.
Limburg said plans are to open the warehouse by the end of the first quarter in 2024 with hiring to begin about 60 days before the opening, then scale up to 500 jobs within a short amount of time.
Limburg said the building is complete, material handling equipment is installed, and equipment is being tested.
Councilman Sloan Stevens felt the Town held up to its side of the agreement and Amazon should hold up to their side of the deal. Stevens said other small businesses were not getting the incentives Amazon was receiving. In a 6-to-1 vote, with Councilman Stevens voting against, the grant extension was approved.
Mayor Andy Moore defended the company saying it was a win-win for everyone and the town was already receiving property tax revenue from the W. Market Street plant, even though it hasn’t opened.
Amazon is deeply evil in their business dealings, and second only to disney in pushing alphabet soup agenda. Buy anywhere else.
I have bought many items through Amazon and not one problem with them. Evil? I personally think not so much true.
They shut down a multi million user social media website, Parler, because they didn’t like them (claimed they violated TOS, but we know thousands of entities on Amazon do that everyday and are ignored).
Whatever happened to not SIMPing for big corporations?
Along with Apple and Google. Amazon, alone did not shut them down. Parler waa a site for racists, election deniers, proud Boys, QAnon, etc. I just if someone is upset over something like that being shut down that says more about you being evil than it does about Amazon and Apple and Google, not wanting to carry the app. More and more you will find that America does not want the racist bigoted rhetoric andlies that the far right wants to push down our throat. You guys have Elon Musk who is willing to let y’all spew your vile and hatred on his site, but even he sees that advertisers are not willing to stay very long. In a capitalist society, it’s all about money, and he will eventually figure it out. Twitter or X has gone down hill since he took over. People are allowed to spew their hate, but it loses in the end. The Majority of Americans are not on the side of hate.
Amazon has abundant material on che guvera, a racist and socialist, but no Confederate flags or other items from southern US heritage.
Did Che Guvera ever attack the USA and Jill American soldiers? The Conferency did.
Jeff, your southern US Heritage as you put it is effing slavery…i.e. owning other humans. Is that what you’re proud of? Surely you can find something else that represents your southern heritage, but I really think you just need a history lesson – a real one, and not the one taught by the daughters of the confederacy.
The confederacy lost the war. it really is time that that fact is accepted. The only place that flag belongs is in a museum or civil War battlefield, as it does represent a horrible disgusting part of the United States history – the traitorous slave owners, who would rather secede from the United States then give up their rights of owning other human beings.
If you join Libby, it’s an app, where you put in your local library card and you can check out books from the library on your phone or tablet. There is a very good audiobook that I suggest you listen to. It is by Adam H. Domby, and it is called The False Cause.
The False Cause is based on the Lost Cause which is an ideology that emerged after the Civil War and flourished in the early 20th century and in essence sought to recast a struggle to perpetuate slavery as a heroic defense to the South. The False Cause focuses on North Carolina to examine the role of lies and exaggeration in the creation of the Lost Cause narrative.
The above description was taken from the book description on Libby and are not my words of course. It’s a book I would suggest all hard-core southerners listen to. You have been lied to all your life, and you were taught incorrectly in school, as were your parents, and depending on your age, maybe grandparents. The belief that the poorest white man was still better than any black man still runs deep in the south. It’s called kicking down and politicians love when their constituents do that. And before you even say it – yes I know in the 1860s the parties were reversed and Democrats were the ones in the south fighting to keep slavery. That changed when LBJ signed the civil rights act.
Cool with that if the 100 mil financial investment can be proved and accounted for that taxes were paid on income and so forth by each that received part of that 100 mil!! If not it’s irrelevant!!!!
Its not a left or right thing. From abusing workers to censorship, pro baby murder to stealing inventors ideas, crushing small competitors w unethical tactics then raising prices, or getting caught stealing customer data w spyware. theres something for everyone to hate in this pure greed driven machine called Amazon.