The public hearing for the FedEx ground incentives package is at Thursday night's commissioners meeting.
GUILFORD COUNTY -- Around a year remains before the massive FedEx East Coast air shipping hub takes off.
"But there's a lot of competition between cities for some of these companies," said Kirk Perkins, chairman of the Guilford County Commissioners, about luring the company to the Triad.
And now the FedEx parent company is hoping for a second helping from Guilford County. Company officials will ask commissioners Thursday night for $952,500 to build a ground shipping center. It would employ 80 full-time workers its first year, making about $40,000 annually.
The 420,000 square foot FedEx ground hub would sit off of Highway 421 on the Guilford County side of Kernersville.
"This will be a hub where packages come in to be rerouted local and all over the Southeast," explained Perkins.
Around a year remains before the massive FedEx East Coast air shipping hub takes off. Where it will be is still up in the air, as the company asks for more incentives.
But Commissioner Billy Yow says he won't approve the incentives.
"I just think it's outrageous with taxes just going up again, on a quarter-million dollar house you're looking at over $400 of taxes, of an increase," Yow said.
The hub is expected to pump some $80 million into Guilford County's commercial tax base and employ up to 470 people in six years.
"That's still not acceptable because they're still going to have emergency service, fire service that the regular tax payers are going to be paying for," Yow said.
The proposed land is just miles from the air shipping hub under construction at PTI airport, but both FedEx ground and FedEx officials say the two operations are two separate divisions.
"But the FedEx air hub will, I'm sure, bring other businesses in when they open next year, that'll want to be within 15-20 minutes of this terminal," Perkins said.
While Perkins says he doesn't yet know if he'll approve the incentives, Yow is convinced the area's skilled workforce is enough reason to do business here.
"In Greensboro and High Point alone, the resources and amenities are plentiful and so you shouldn't have to pay a company to want to come to a good place," he said.
The public hearing for the FedEx ground incentives package is at Thursday night's commissioners meeting. That's at 5:30 p.m. in the old Guilford County courthouse in downtown Greensboro.