Council backs incentives for Buckingham law firm to return downtown; MOU discussed for county job-sharing

The planning committee and then full council members discussed two economic development items: support agreements for Buckingham, Doolittle & Burrows LLC’s relocation to downtown Akron (AES Building) and a Summit County intergovernmental memorandum of understanding (MOU) to share tax revenue tied to job creation and retention.

Councilmember Sean Vollman introduced the Buckingham support package: the administration requested authority to enter into a $50,000 retention/expansion grant and a job-creation grant tied to new payroll. Chris Niekamp, representing Buckingham, said the firm intends to invest approximately $1.7–2.0 million renovating the AES Building and to bring employees back downtown. Niekamp said the firm’s executive committee unanimously supported returning to downtown Akron and described plans for conference space and building upgrades.

On the Summit County MOU, staff explained that 27 political subdivisions in Summit County are signatories and that the agreement provides two triggers for tax sharing: (1) when a new company’s payroll exceeds a set amount of payroll in a jurisdiction, and (2) when a company is incentivized to move between signatory communities. Staff said the payroll trigger had previously been $3.5 million and had been raised to $4.5 million (adjusted with indexing) to reflect current thresholds.

Council approved suspension of rules and gave favorable recommendations on the Buckingham item and the job-creation MOU during the session.