WASHINGTON -- Marriott International is still pressing to secure up to $62 million in state and county incentives for a new headquarters, and now the firm knows where it would like to spend it.
The $33.1 billion company announced Friday that it had signed a letter of intent to lease space in a planned development by Boston Properties and Bernstein Cos. located at 7750 Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda, Md., outside Washington. The project beat out about a half-dozen other developments vying for the lease. The project will also include a 230-room Marriott hotel.
In the meantime, Marriott, now the largest hotel firm in the world, continues to seek taxpayer-funded subsidies. The company received good news this week when Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan included $20 million in his latest budget to go toward a retention package for the company.
The proposed funding follows an agreement with Hogan and Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, reached in October, that would mark the second publicly funded incentive package Marriott has received from the state and county in less than 20 years, reigniting a debate over how far elected leaders ought to go to chase corporate employers.
Hogan and Leggett have touted the subsidies to preserve jobs and a top corporate nameplate. But the package, which effectively provides Marriott up to $17,700 per employee to move about five miles, comes as Hogan also proposed cutting $22.5 million for a planned hospital in Prince George's County, $8.4 million from care for the developmentally disabled, 92 percent of the budget of the state's Department of Housing and Community Development, and millions in funding for after-school and scholarship programs, parks and adult education.
In discussing his budget plans, Hogan said fiscal discipline had kept Maryland on sound footing.
"Because of the fiscal restraint that we've instituted over the past two years, while many other states are facing crippling budget shortfalls, we are in much better shape today than we would have been," he said Tuesday.
Business on 01/21/2017