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Nationwide Children’s Hospital Presents Partnership Expansion, Economic Incentive Request to Board of Education
Jan. 21, 2020 -- Representatives from Nationwide Children’s Hospital presented to the Columbus Board of Education at Tuesday’s regular business meeting, detailing the longstanding partnership between the two organizations and laying out their request for an economic incentive package for their planned Andelyn Biosciences facility.
Click here to watch the presentation and discussion with the Board of Education.
Last week, Nationwide Children’s announced the creation of Andelyn Biosciences, an affiliate company that will manufacture gene therapy products for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry scheduled to begin operations in 2023. According to Nationwide Children’s, it will be central Ohio’s first commercial-scale Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) clinical manufacturing facility devoted to gene therapies.
As an affiliate corporation, Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s revenues from Andelyn Biosciences will be re-invested in the hospital’s research for a broad range of pediatric diseases.
The Ohio State University’s West Campus innovation district is being explored as a location for the Andelyn Biosciences facility. The proposed location is currently on property that is tax-exempt.
The property would become taxable if Andelyn Biosciences, a commercial for-profit project, is built there. Nationwide Children’s is requesting a 100%, 15-year property tax abatement on the improvements to the property estimated to be worth $19.7 million in total over the 15 years.
Over the term of the abatement, Columbus City Schools would begin to receive approximately $4.7 million from land tax and shared income taxes combined. Currently, CCS receives no tax income from the property. After the 15-year term expires, CCS would receive an estimated $1.3 million annually.
In addition to the tax revenue, CCS would also see a significant increase to the in-kind services provided by Nationwide Children’s in the District’s school buildings.
Nationwide Children’s currently provides $3.2 million worth of services in more than 100 locations across the District, including:
- Primary care through school-based health centers and mobile care centers;
- Behavioral health treatment and prevention services for children experiencing social and emotional difficulties;
- Seating clinic at Colerain Elementary School for students who need wheelchair repairs or fitted for new mobility equipment;
- School-based asthma therapy to improve the health of children with poorly-controlled asthma;
- Health education sessions provided by Nationwide Children’s faculty for students, classrooms, and parents on age-specific topics;
- Career development and outreach programs including Kindergarten readiness, mentoring, internships, and after-school STEM learning opportunities.
District officials have cited the need for expanded primary care and behavioral health services. Nationwide Children’s has proposed adding five clinicians to the services it already provides at an in-kind cost of $330,000 annually. This would bring the total services provided to CCS to more than $3.5 million per year and nearly $53 million over the 15-year term.
The Board of Education discussed the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting but took no action. The Board is expected to vote on the proposal at its next regular business meeting on Feb. 4. If the Board of Education approves the proposal, Nationwide Children’s would then present the request to Columbus City Council for approval.