By Lauren Ohnesorge
Senior Staff Writer, Triangle Business Journal
Sep 26, 2019, 2:52pm EDT
Updated Sep 26, 2019, 4:31pm EDT
With a competing incentives package from New York State to the tune of $120 million, it looked – at least on paper – as though North Carolina would be a tough sell for technology giant Xerox, looking to build a 600-job “Center of Excellence” somewhere in the United States.
But a review of communications, applications and other documents provided by the North Carolina Department of Commerce, at the behest of a public records request, show Triangle talent won out – over multiple states and multiple aggressive incentives offers.
The opportunity itself kept changing, records show.
At one point the project was exploring the possibility of creating a whopping 800 jobs. By June, the number had sunk to 300, only to later double as Xerox continued to crunch its numbers – and explore its options.
State officials’ communication with Xerox (NYSE: XRX), known internally as “Project Wildflower,” began in earnest in March. But documents over the next few weeks continued to show “moving targets” and changing timelines when it came to what, exactly, they wanted their center to look like.
“Xerox still ironing out some issues with a potential landlord and, with our primary contact headed to India for a week, is now looking to go closed July 9,” wrote North Carolina Commerce Department’s Mark Poole on June 14, two months before the project would be officially announced as a win for the state.
Records show an exhaustive site selection search – even before the Commerce team was looped into the effort.
Xerox had tapped consultant Jones Lang LaSalle to provide an “assessment” of 11 locations, including Cary. The company would also examine Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Austin, Pittsburgh and Connecticut during its search, records show. And it would also look at the feasibility of just keeping the operation in Webster, New York, a project summary from July 19 notes.
Xerox, according to what it told North Carolina officials, could get bigger incentives packages to locate elsewhere – and not just in New York.
How much Xerox estimated it could get if it located to one of the five other finalist cities:
• Rochester, New York: Up to $130 million in total incentives
• Norwalk, Connecticut: Up to $12 million in total incentives
• Austin: Up to $30 million in total incentives
• Dallas: Up to $30 million in total incentives
• Minneapolis: Up to $30 million in total incentives
• North Carolina wound up offering decidedly less, a $12 million incentives package. But Xerox told state officials it wasn’t just about incentives. The company wanted to save $30 million in annual operating costs.
As the weeks went by, Xerox executives would start to narrow their choices, meeting with representatives of both New York and Connecticut “regarding incentives to remain in New York, as well as expanding operations in Connecticut.”
“Each state has job incentives and Xerox is currently going through the process to determine the benefits they would achieve by creating jobs in the various states,” the company noted in July. “The company anticipates making a final decision shortly after being informed of North Carolina’s offer.”
Talent appeared to be the driver behind its growing interest in North Carolina. Xerox told the state it wanted to implement a “formal College Recruitment program,” focusing on recruiting new graduates. And it planned to establish a partnership with Wake County to create “formal training programs.”
On Aug. 13, North Carolina inked the win. Xerox announced it would be building a new center in Cary, creating 600 jobs. The $18.4 million investment in Wake County was approved for a Job Development Investment Grant worth up to $12.3 million over 12 years.
And the project's average wages – at $112,818 – are nearly double that of Wake County's at $58,138, according to Commerce records. But on Aug. 9, the company asked the state to – if at all possible – leave the wage figure out of its press release announcing the project, fearing it could “cause some issues for us internally.”
Xerox – while listed as new-to-the-state in documents – isn’t actually a new player. The company used to have a sizeable presence in Cary, even after inking multiple layoff rounds. The company left, however, when it split off Conduent. The units in Cary were part of what become Conduent, which announced its own 200-job tech hub in Morrisville in 2018.