Burlington’s city council has agreed to hold a public hearing next month to let the public weigh in on a proposed change to an incentives agreement that the city negotiated with the Samet Corporation in 2021.
The council ultimately voted 5-to-0 on Tuesday to convene this hearing on October 7 as a potential prelude to the modification of its four-year-old deal, which has already seen the city pay out nearly $1 million to reimburse infrastructure work by the Greensboro-based company.
Burlington’s original agreement with Samet had obligated the city to reimburse $964,000 in road and utility work that the company planned to complete within a 22-acre medical office park at the corner of Huffman Mill Road and Grand Oaks Boulevard.
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The council initially signed off on this deal in June of 2021, effectively agreeing to pay Samet the reimbursement in exchange for the tax receipts for a 5-building office park, which is expected to have a tax value of at least $25 million at build out.
A little over a year later, the council held a special-called meeting to release the funds, although it also took the precaution of putting a lien on the property until it had received property taxes from Samet equal to $964,000 plus the equivalent of five years on a $25 million assessment (which comes to an additional $604,500 at the city’s current property tax rate of 48.36 cents for every $100 of property value).
Adam Shull, the city’s economic development director, acknowledged that Samet has made some progress on this project, which has been christened the Grand Oaks Professional Park. He conceded, however, that the company still has a way to go before it reaches the promised assessed value.
“The request is to extend some of the timelines for that agreement,” he explained during the council meeting on Tuesday. “We have one building there with a tax value of about $12 million,” he added. “So, it continues to be worthy investment…and it fits with the uses in that area.”
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Shull later assured The Alamance News that the proposed revisions to Samet’s agreement with Burlington wouldn’t allow the company to wiggle out of any of its previous pledges to the city. It would, instead, give the company more time to reach the promised assessment of $25 million and tender the agreed upon tax payments (which would total $1,568,500 under the city’s current property tax rate). According to Burlington’s city attorney David Huffman, the company is requesting three more years on top of the previously agreed-on timetable.
The council voted 5-to-0 to add this hearing to its docket during the public portion of Tuesday’s meeting. Its members then went into closed session for more than four hours to discuss personnel matters that presumably included their forthcoming selection of a successor to city manager Craig Honeycutt, who had previously announced he’d retire at the end of the year.
