Supersized subsidies, supersized regrets

Palm Beach County has been where Sarasota County is when it comes to Jackson Labs — in 2003 with The Scripps Research Institute.

That's when Palm Beach embarked on a lengthy and controversial process to lure the California-based nonprofit biomedical research organization to open an East Coast home in the county. State and county officials, led by then Gov. Jeb Bush, dangled $600 million in subsidies to attract Scripps.

Scripps eventually opened a facility in Jupiter, in 2009. But that was only after the county spent more than $100 million on land for a facility in Palm Beach Gardens it didn't use because of environmental concerns.

Now, with some money paid off and millions of dollars in more debt payments still due to Scripps, the county has grappled with how it will pay for the project.

Property taxes have already been raised at least once to cover any general shortfalls and avoid service disruptions.

Still, Palm Beach County Assistant Administrator Shannon LaRocque, in a recent interview with Coffee Talk, insists local officials hold no buyer's remorse on Scripps.

LaRocque cites potential spinoff businesses and patience, similar concepts bandied about in Sarasota to justify incentives to lure Maine-based Jackson Labs to open a large facility in town. (See Business Review, March 18.)

“We are slowly but surely reaping the investment,” says LaRocque. “No one thought this would be overnight.”

Yet LaRocque sure talks like there are plenty of regrets.

“If we knew then what we know now about falling property values, we probably would not have done it,” LaRocque says. “But in 2003 it was a real estate (location) issue, not a funding issue.”

Adds LaRocque: “We know we could never do something like Scripps again.”