Durham County authorizes up to $15.45M performance award to secure AbbVie's $1.3B manufacturing campus

The Durham County Board of Commissioners voted on July 13 to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute a performance agreement with AbbVie that caps the county's performance-based award at $15,450,000. The action follows a public hearing and a staff presentation on "Project Glass," a proposed AbbVie manufacturing campus that county staff said would create 734 jobs and nearly $1.3 billion in local investment.

Matt Filter, Durham County's economic development manager, told the board the proposal would "create 734 great paying jobs, invest nearly $1,300,000,000 in our community, and generate $58,000,000 in new tax revenue over a stabilized 10 year period." He said the requested performance award is funded by the new tax revenue the project is expected to produce and that payments would only be made after annual verification that AbbVie met job, investment and community partnership commitments.

Helen Kim Fitzpatrick, vice president for state government affairs for AbbVie, described the company's pitch to Durham as an effort to build a U.S. center for small-volume parenteral manufacturing and said the campus would support manufacturing, laboratories and "artificial intelligence enabled technologies" to advance drug production. "This is AbbVie's first major capital investment in North Carolina," she said, adding the company expects to support construction jobs during build-out and to recruit locally for long-term operations.

Local partners at the hearing — including Durham Technical Community College, North Carolina Central University and Durham Public Schools — described how training programs, dual-enrollment and apprenticeship pathways could funnel graduates into the jobs AbbVie plans to create. JB Buxton, president of Durham Tech, highlighted a 30,000-square-foot Life Sciences training building as part of the workforce pipeline.

Commissioners pressed for details on site selection and workforce plans; county staff and AbbVie officials said the site is roughly 185 acres at the Palmer Edge location and that the company will partner with local educational institutions on internships, apprenticeships and hiring. The company and staff also said the incentive agreement requires annual performance verification before payments are made.

The board initially voted to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute the agreement and then made a motion to reconsider in order to include the explicit not-to-exceed amount of $15,450,000; that motion passed and the record shows the performance award was authorized with that limit. The award documents and payments are conditional on AbbVie meeting the performance benchmarks set out in the county's business recruitment and expansion policy.

No formal fiscal encumbrance of the incentive fund was reported in the hearing; staff said the award would be funded by the new tax revenue the project generates if and when it stabilizes. The board closed the public hearing after the vote and invited AbbVie and partners to pose for a photo.

The county manager was authorized to finalize the negotiated agreement and return for any required ministerial steps in accordance with county procedures.