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NEW JOB-CREATING TOOL AVAILABLE
TexAmericas Center Now Able to Offer Texas Enterprise Zone Incentive
TexAmericas Center is pleased to announce that it can offer Texas Enterprise Zone incentives. This program allows companies making capital investments that add or retain jobs to qualify for valuable economic benefits potentially. This new incentive adds another helpful tool to TexAmericas Center’s job-creating toolbox.
“Texas has historically allowed local communities to lead the way in the realm of business attraction and job creation, “said Scott Norton, Executive Director/CEO of TexAmericas Center. “TexAmericas Center is proud and honored to be authorized to work with Bowie County to offer this powerful business and job creation incentive. We are excited to grow our partnership with the State of Texas and Bowie County. Our ability to offer this statewide economic development program, known as the Texas Enterprise Zone Program, right in here in Bowie County is going to allow us to create quality jobs and bring greater economic opportunity for everyone in the Texarkana region.”
The Texas Enterprise Zone is a basket of economic development incentives available to qualified businesses that allow local communities to partner with the State of Texas to promote job creation and capital investment. TexAmericas Center qualifies as a Texas Enterprise Zone site because the organization is a State of Texas Local Redevelopment Authority. TexAmericas Center is responsible for the redevelopment of 12,000 acres and 3,000,000 square feet of former military property in northeast Texas near Texarkana.
Bowie County must nominate a company as an Enterprise Project to be eligible to participate in the new designated Enterprise Zone Program site. Once the state approves a business for benefits, it becomes known as an Enterprise Zone project. Selected projects are eligible to apply for state sales-and-use-tax refunds on qualifying expenditures, which include all taxable items purchased for use at the business site and related to the project. Refund amounts correlate to the amount of capital invested and the number of jobs created. An additional requirement to become an Enterprise Zone project is local community support through incentives such as tax abatement, tax increment financing, and one-stop permitting. The state of Texas mandates that 25% of an Enterprise Zone project’s employment meet economically disadvantaged status or Enterprise Zone residency requirements.
TexAmericas Center can designate six projects per biennium each for up to five years, not including the 90-day window before the application deadline. Employment and capital investment commitments must be incurred and met within this timeframe. The state accepts applications quarterly with deadlines on the first business day of March, June, September, and December.
On June 16, 2015, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 100 (“S.B. 100”), which places renewed emphasis on incentivizing new job creation under the state’s Enterprise Zone Program. The bill reflects changes to the program designed to induce and to support the creation of new employment.
- Emphasizing stronger incentives for job creation by limiting Double-Jumbo and Triple-Jumbo designations to projects that create new jobs
- Adding veterans to the categories of targeted employees to incentivize the hiring of honorably discharged veterans
- Allowing an enterprise project to have only one concurrent designation at any given time and not multiple concurrent appointments occurring at the same designation period
- Creating half-designations to promote small businesses’ access to and participation in the program
- Requiring an inter-local agreement for specific nominations made by a county for a project located within the jurisdiction of a municipality
- Job retention projects will no longer qualify for Double-Jumbo or Triple-Jumbo designations. However, companies may be eligible for single-designations and half-designations for qualifying job retention projects.
The Texas Enterprise Zone Program is not just a tool for business attraction, under specific statutory provisions, it grants an enterprise project designation for job expansion and retention.
Program overview: State Benefits to Participation
| LEVEL OF CAPITAL INVESTMENT | MAXIMUM NUMBER OF JOBS ALLOCATED | MAXIMUM POTENTIAL REFUND | MAXIMUM REFUND PER JOB ALLOCATED |
| $40,000 to $399,999 | 10 | $ 25,000 | $2,500 |
| $400,000 to $999,999 | 25 | 62,500 | 2,500 |
| $1,000,000 to $4,999,999 | 125 | 312,500 | 2,500 |
| $5,000,000 or more | 250 | 625,000 | 2,500 |
| $5,000,000 to $149,999,999 | 500 | 1,250,000 | 2,500 |
| $150,000,000 to $249,999,999 (“Double Jumbo Project”) | 500 | 2,500,000 | 5,000 |
| $250,000,000 or more (“Triple Jumbo Project”) | 500 | 3,750,000 | 7,500 |
About TexAmericas Center
Located in the Texarkana metropolitan area, TexAmericas Center owns and operates one of the largest mixed-use industrial parks in the United States. With roughly 12,000 development-ready acres of land and about 3 million square feet of commercial and industrial product, TexAmericas Center services the four states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas) markets. TexAmericas Center is a designated HUBZone, New Market Tax Credit Census Tract, and Foreign Trade Zone #258. Texas is the #1 state for business in the United States of America because of its regulatory environment, tax policies, and workforce quality, along with excellent educational resources, infrastructure, and quality of living. Founded in 1997, TexAmericas Center has the operating capabilities of a municipality but functions more like a traditional real estate development company, offering customized real estate solutions. In addition to controlling our zoning and permitting processes and sustaining the life cycle of public infrastructure on the complex, TAC can lease, build-to-suit, or facilitate Greenfield owner-constructed projects in a timely and efficient manner. At TAC, we streamline leasing and manage government development processes all through a single point of contact. Our customers benefit from faster market entry by resolving to zone, permitting, inspection, and state and local incentive programs solely through our organization. Tenants of TexAmericas Center tend to be private business owners and corporations seeking flexible and cost-effective space solutions.
If you would like more information, please contact Scott Norton, Executive Director/CEO, (903) 223-9841 or email at Scott.Norton@TexAmericasCenter.com.
Ruthie Jackson
Customer Engagement Specialist
107 Chapel Lane
New Boston, TX 75570