With a $51.8 million deal, the city council on Monday added a major motion picture and video game animation studio to the growing list of companies lured to the Treasure Coast with millions in local, state and federal incentives.

Council members unanimously approved the grant for Wyndcrest DD of Florida, a parent company of Digital Domain, the Academy Award-winning firm behind animation for movies such as Titanic, Apollo 13 and Transformers.

According to the grant agreement, the project will be funded mostly with privately backed bond money through joint efforts with St. Lucie County. About $20 million will come from developers — $10 million from two developers that had been earmarked for another project and $10 million from a land swap between the city and one of the Tradition developers.

In exchange, the company will have to create up to 500 jobs with an average annual salary of nearly $65,000 by 2014. Through a 20-year lease agreement, the company is expected to reimburse the city for all but the $10 million received from the developers.

Wyndcrest owner and CEO John Textor told council members during a presentation Monday that the company already had hired 15 people for the new studio, including two from Port St. lucie and several more from the Treasure Coast.

Wyndcrest and city leaders said the $51.8 million price tag would not affect local taxpayers. Councilman Jack Kelly referenced the $20 million the company is receiving in state funding.

“We’re getting all that money back from the state,” Kelly said. “It’s a win-win.”

Before the vote, resident Steve Carroll expressed concern that the grant would fail to provide jobs for locals.

“Can you say with any certainty that it’ll reduce our unemployment, or are we going to be just throwing $50 million away?” Carroll asked.

“I cannot tell you what the trends are; I don’t even own a video game,” City Manager Don Cooper said. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the next 50 years. All I can say is that in my discussions (with Textor), they have expressed a commitment to this area.”

After the vote, Mayor Patricia Christiansen said she received a call from the mayor of another city hoping to lure the studio.

“I’ll be happy to tell him that’s not going to happen,” she said.

Although the Port St. Lucie vote went smoothly, the state’s portion has drawn ire from at least one lawmaker. Earlier this month, state Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, said the legislature should stop payment on the $20 million approved for Wyndcrest this summer through an economic incentive package, saying the money was at “significant risk” with the company.

Textor dismissed the complaint, saying other lucrative projects such as the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies had received much more opposition. Torrey Pines, which opened its $40 million Port St. Lucie campus in January, received $100 million in state and local incentives. In exchange, the institute promised to employ 189 workers within 10 years.

“We’re heartened by the decision,” Textor said after the vote. “Tonight’s the first night in this process that a city has put their support for us on paper.”

The deal could be finalized in January.

Tags: wyndcrest

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Economy, Port St. Lucie, Treasure Coast business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.