Following a nearly one-year delay caused by Covid-19, Syngenta Crop Protection on Tuesday announced plans to retain its U.S. headquarters in Greensboro. During a virtual event, the company said it will invest $68 million in renovations to its 17-building, 70-acre campus on Swing Road at Interstate 85.
In January 2020, the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford Board of County Commissioners approved a combined $3.6 million in city and county incentive packages to keep the U.S. headquarters of Syngenta Crop Protection — and its 650 jobs — in Greensboro. The 10-year, 70% tax rebate package is worth $1.7 million from Greensboro and $1.9 million from the county.
At the time, the company was considering whether to renovate and remain on its nearly 60-year-old site in southwest Greensboro, to renovate another location in the city or relocate the company elsewhere. Syngenta already has a significant presence in Research Triangle Park.
Following the approval of the incentives last year, Vern Hawkins, president of North America Syngenta Crop Protection, said a decision was expected before spring 2020.
"We hope to make the decision in the next couple of months,” Hawkins told Triad Business Journal at the time. “In February or March, we hope to be in a position to have all the parallel discussions complete such that we can make a decision that the site will be in the area, and hopefully the specific location as well.”
The onset of Covid-19 changed that timetable, though, when a Syngenta employee became the first reported Covid-19 case to be diagnosed in Guilford County. In addition to disrupting its operations, the response to the virus brought the company’s new space planning to a halt as well.
The local incentives were extended in exchange for a guarantee from Syngenta that it would keep 650 jobs with an average annual salary of $107,000 — a total payroll of $69.5 million — in Greensboro for no fewer than 10 years, plus invest a minimum of $68 million in real property, furniture and equipment. The package included clawback provisions to ensure that the company would receive incentives commensurate only with the criteria that are met.
The initial phase of the plans include a new office building connected to renovated existing lab facilities. The two phases of redevelopment, the company said, will take approximately three years to complete.
Syngenta Crop Protection’s parent company, The Syngenta Group, is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It was acquired in 2016 by ChemChina, which is owned by the Chinese government, for $43 billion.
