WuXi seeks $11.5M tax break for $60M Worcester facility

PHOTO/TMS AERIAL SOLUTIONS The Worcester Business Development Corp. is turning the 44 acres around the former Worcester State Hospital into The Reactory, a biomanufacturing campus.

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By Grant Welker

The Worcester city administration is recommending the City Council on Tuesday approve a $11.5-million tax break to benefit WuXi Biologics, a firm planning a biomanufacturing facility off Belmont Street.

WuXi is the first named planned tenant of the Reactory, a 46-acre campus of buildings proposed for the longtime Worcester State Hospital site. The Chinese firm has said it plans a $60-million facility to be its first such site in the United States.

WuXi could get a financial boost from both the city and state. Worcester Chief Development Officer Michael Traynor is proposing the City Council approve a 20-year tax break to save WuXi 40% of the tax bill the company would pay above the value the property is assessed at today.

WuXi's planned building would increase the value of the site from $1.5 million today to $36 million, Traynor said. While WuXi is estimated to save $11.5 million on its tax bill over the 20 years of the tax agreement, the city would bring in an estimated $20.8 million, he said.

The company has also received a $6-million tax credit from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, according to Traynor.

The Worcester Business Development Corp., a public-private business development agency, bought the site in phases in 2017 and 2018 and is marketing the site today to prospective tenants.

“We hope to close on the land sale with WuXi within the next 60 days, which will allow them to start construction this spring,” said Craig Blais, WBDC president and CEO.

WuXi is planning a 107,000-square-foot facility with 150 workers that the city says will average $70,000 per year in salary. The company's plans have called for a biologics clinical and commercial manufacturing facility able to handle both clinical and small volume commercial production, along with an early-stage bioprocess development lab.

The firm plans to break ground this spring and open by March 2022, Traynor said.

Tax incentives have become a regular tool for the city administration in attracting new business, including a $4.6-million tax break approved in February for a new Table Talk Pies facility and a series of tax breaks for office, residential and hotel uses proposed off Madison Street across from the $132-million Polar Park baseball stadium now under construction.

The Reactory is envisioned as an expansion of health and technology uses to take advantage of a location next to UMass Medical School, drugmaker AbbVie and the affiliated UMass Medicine Science Park.