Greenville County Council unanimously passed expanded tax incentives Tuesday night for United Community Bank to build a new headquarters in downtown Greenville after confusion and anger roiled its last meeting.
Since the approval of an initial deal in February to give the bank a 35% discount in payments for a decade, the bank bought an additional 2.3 acres that it’s wanted to add to the incentive package. The tax-incentive expansion will make the additional acreage eligible for a similar fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreement.
United Community Bank’s downtown headquarters is to be a $30 million investment that is expected to create 225 jobs. It’s going to be at the former Wyche law-firm office building at 200 East Camperdown Way, where demolition of the old building has begun.
The decision to approve the deal comes two weeks after a deadlocked County Council killed the expanded incentives with a 6-6 vote.
Councilman Dan Tripp thought a move to hold a vote on the deal and send the issue back to the council’s Finance Committee was an attempt to quash the deal. He referred to the committee — which has recently nixed tax deals for a mixed-use development in Greer and the proposed Greenville Triumph stadium in Mauldin — as the “kill committee.”
