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Filibuster may have lost pharmaceutical plant

Submitted by: John Warner on Jun 13, 2003 at 5:00 am Tagged with: General Archives Source:

Filibuster may have lost pharmaceutical plant
Posted Friday, June 13, 2003 - 7:08 pm

By DAN HOOVER
STAFF WRITER
dhoover@greenvillenews.com
The Greenville News

A long-sought pharmaceutical plant potentially rivaling BMW in scope may have
been lost to Greenville County because a state Senate filibuster delayed action
until next year on a crucial incentives package, a county official said Friday.
"It was as big on the pharmaceutical side as BMW on the automotive side," said
Mark Kingsbury, a Greenville County Council member. Kingsbury said he was not
privy to details or the name of the firm.
Industry hunters wouldn't say the delay was a deal-breaker, but that no
top-flight pharmaceutical-biotech firms will come to Greenville or elsewhere in
South Carolina until the new incentives are in place.
Whether the firm's decision could be delayed until next year wasn't clear.
A one-man adjournment day filibuster on June 5 prevented the state Senate from
passing the bill to expand incentives for high-paying biotechnology companies.
The legislation would have affected firms investing at least $100 million with
a minimum of 200 jobs that are 150 percent above the state's average per capita
income, said House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville. The state's per capita
income was $18,795 in 1999, according to the South Carolina Statistical
Abstract 2001-2002.
With the delay, "I don't know the status. I do know there was a good prospect
that, among others, that bill was designed to attract," Wilkins said. "The last
I heard, we were still in the running."
A "disappointed" Sam Konduros, president of the Upstate S.C. Alliance, a
quasi-public industry recruiting agency, said the bill "is hugely related to
our success in attracting a biotechnology plant. One will be very difficult to
attract without that bill."
Konduros, who declined to identify the firm, said he was not aware of any
decision by the company to drop Greenville from its list.
"The life sciences bill was a big part of this and when it didn't pass, it
wasn't going to happen," Kingsbury said. "Hopefully, it's not gone; in this
economy, they might be willing to wait."
Jerry Howard, president of the Greenville Area Development Corp., declined to
comment when asked if the firm had opted for another location.
But Howard said, "Considering the state of South Carolina, our region, and
Greenville, we've all identified pharmaceutical-biotech industries as a high
priority for recruitment. This bill, by not being passed, hasn't helped in that
regard. Until that bill is passed, South Carolina cannot be competitive in that
market."
Howard wouldn't identify the firm.
Kingsbury said, "Hopefully, it's not gone."
Konduros said the bill was critical for the whole pharmaceutical-biotechnology
market range and "for clients looking at the Upstate, it would have made us
competitive."
The House-passed bill was before the Senate just hours before adjournment when
freshman Republican John Kuhn of Charleston spoke at length and, in the face of
repeated requests, declined to yield the floor. Kuhn's effort created visible
tension and triggered several impromptu meetings in which he was surrounded by
colleagues who urged him to relent.
The industrial recruitment incentives had been merged into a bill that would
have created access to tens of millions of dollars for the state's three
research universities and Kuhn sought to add smaller institutions to the mix.
Wilkins said the bill will win Senate approval when lawmakers return to
Columbia and that Gov. Mark Sanford and Commerce Secretary Bob Faith "were
pushing hard" for its passage when the Legislature adjourned.
He said it was his understanding that the company had narrowed the possible
sites to Greenville and a location in another state.
Wilkins said the proposed legislation would expand the Enterprise Zone Act
passed during the 1995-99 Beasley administration that provided eligibility for
employee relocation expense reimbursement and job development credits to
attract companies to the state.
"It was designed to look at numbers," Wilkins said. "If a company came in here
and created X hundreds of jobs, it got some investment credits. This bill
changes the focus so that you're not emphasizing just pure numbers, but a major
capital investment and high-paying jobs. Wilkins said he didn't know the
proposed number of jobs or the pay range.
In the highly secretive world of industry-hunting, where disclosure of a firm's
identity can sink a potential relocation, Greenville officials dubbed the
effort, "Project Rain" or "Rainwater," Kingsbury said.