Allowing Hybrid And Remote Work May Cost Companies Their Tax Incentives

As workers drag their feet in returning to the office, the foundation beneath the billions of dollars in incentive agreements between local governments and major corporations is crumbling.

States and localities spent up to $95B in economic incentives annually in the years before the pandemic, experts estimate, and many of the corporate recipients agreed to have their workers in the office full time.

Economic development agencies are now scrambling to accommodate changing work patterns while maintaining the activity that in-office workers bring to a city. But businesses that would like to keep their cash grants, tax rebates and other incentives are urging those agencies to allow them to abandon the office altogether.

“Some incentives programs need to be modified to allow for job creation that is placeless,” Gregg Wassmansdorf, chair of the Site Selectors Guild and senior managing director for global corporate services at Newmark, told Bisnow. “That's creating a challenge.”A

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More Than Beakers And Pipettes: Biotech Developments Go Big

Cities across the U.S. have spent the last two years grappling with how to reinvigorate formerly bustling areas, a goal complicated by economic unease, but one corner of the CRE development world — life sciences — is betting big on creating its own buzz with huge new projects that could meld with the cities they inhabit.

Borrowing from Big Tech and the self-contained hamlets companies like Apple and Facebook built for themselves in Silicon Valley, life sciences companies want to provide a comprehensive experience where employees can access more than just their work. But unlike Big Tech, they also want to interact with the public. 

“People will come just for the park, to have wine and see the symphony at Helix Park,” Texas Medical Center President and CEO Bill McKeon said about a coming 37-acre expansion of his facility. “We don’t want them to feel like they’re coming to Beaker Village or Pipette Land. They don’t even have to know the research is happening in these buildings.”

The $1.8B Helix Park project in Houston will be a multi-use expansion focusing on attracting life sciences firms and represents a hoped-for turning point in the city’s biotech sector. This critical mass of lab and research space will ideally spur additional spinoffs and startups. But it also represents a new…

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