Worcester Business Journal

14 Worcester Business Journal | January 21, 2019 | wbjournal.com F O C U S C o m m e r c i a l R e a l E s t a t e BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor Hits & Misses Central Mass. tax break agreements have a 12% failure rate, but for local governments, the potential upside outweighs the risk I n June of 2012, Milford town officials reached agreement with a research company to expand its headquarters by 60,000 square feet. e $42-million investment by Biomeasure Inc. was expected to bring 20 more jobs to Milford. Milford's hopes soon unraveled. By the next year, Biomeasure decided instead to cancel the expansion, sell the facility and move. Just five months aer Milford signed its deal with Biomeasure, Marl- borough reached a similar agree- ment with Quest Diagnostics, a New Jersey medical laboratory service. Quest would soon open a $78-million, 200,000-square-foot laboratory at a sprawling building le vacant by the demise of computer manufacturer Digital Equipment Corp. e deal helped bring what the company now says is more than 2,000 lab workers, including researchers, and genetic counselors. "Our whole objective in this thing is to make the pie get bigger," Marlborough Mayor Arthur Vigeant said. is hit-or-miss nature has been an unavoidable part of communities' use of business tax breaks over the last two decades, according to a Worcester Business Journal review of 148 tax breaks in 16 Central Massachusetts communities Of all those tax breaks, 18 – or 12 percent – were decertified. Among them: • Holiday Housewares closed in 2006, four years aer it got a tax break from Leominster for a planned $39-million expansion. • Lonza Group, a life sciences company, closed its Hopkinton facility roughly six years aer it committed to a $70-million expansion with 300 new jobs. • Stryker Corp. eliminated its Hopkinton operations in 2011 aer it sold most of its business to Olympus Biotech, which itself folded three years later. • In Fitchburg, PGM Plastics went out of business in 2008, four years aer it signed a tax break with the city. • Also in Fitchburg, wood pellet maker Creative Bio- mass went out of business soon aer its 2010 tax deal to hire 15 workers. • Charles River Laboratories closed its Shrewsbury lab – temporarily, it turned out – four years aer it committed to a $67-million expansion to add 300 jobs. The ribbon-cutting effect Even though these deals can fail, there are reasons municipal leaders oen turn to them as a way to try jumpstarting new development or additional jobs, said Megan Randall, a research analyst with the Urban In- stitute, a Washington, D.C., economic and social policy think tank. 2nd in a 4-story series Tax Breaks Paying for Growth Marlborough Mayor Arthur Vigeant was proactive in getting two large empty office buildings filled, offer- ing tax breaks to Quest Diagnostics and other large companies. PHOTO/MATT WRIGHT

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