Medtronic could still get tax incentives for Lafayette campus

LAFAYETTE — In August 2019, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved a performance-based tax incentive package worth $24.8 million for a mysterious Fortune 500 biotech company known then only as “Project Charlie Brown” that wanted to build a large-scale operation in Boulder County.

The mystery company, it would soon be discovered, was medical-device maker Medtronic Inc., and the project it wanted to build was a new corporate campus in Louisville. 

Fast-forward to October 2020, and that project looks quite a bit different. Louisville, which saw residents and elected officials oppose the overall development plan that would have included the Medtronic campus, is out, and nearby Lafayette has stepped in as the new suitor for the project. 

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So what happens to the nearly $25 million in tax incentives already approved for the Louisville project? According to the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, Medtronic likely can still take advantage of the package. 

“OEDIT received notice from Medtronic that it is pursuing an alternative project location in Lafayette,” Office of Economic Development and International Trade communications manager Jill McGranahan told BizWest in an email. “The EDC has historically allowed a [Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit] award to move forward if the corresponding project jobs meet the [annual average wage] of the ultimate county in which the project commences (in this instance, the same county).”

Last year, when Medtronic was approved for incentives, the company told the EDC that the roughly 1,000 new jobs that will be housed in Boulder County would pay an average annual wage of nearly $137,000. That’s well above the county’s annual average wage. The median household income in Boulder County is roughly $84,000.

Medtronic is eyeing a roughly 42-acre parcel just south of the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette, northeast of the interchange of Northwest Parkway and U.S. Highway 287 to develop the nearly 600,000-square-foot complex.

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