CUMBERLAND — One of Cobb’s high-profile corporate citizens is threatening to leave if it doesn’t receive “significant” tax breaks in return for an expansion that includes 200 to 300 employees at an average salary of about $75,000.
The Weather Channel, headquartered in Cumberland and owned by NBC, has never asked for subsidies before, but it now needs a reason not to leave Cobb, said Kathy Angell, senior vice president of The Weather Channel’s taxation division, in a Nov. 1 email to Brooks Mathis, executive vice president of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
The company opened its current offices on Interstate North Parkway at I-75 and I-285 in 1996.
Its planned expansion is valued at $90 million, Mathis said in emails obtained by the MDJ. Shirley Powell, executive vice president, said The Weather Channel would not comment and that anything the MDJ reported at this point would be “speculation.”
The negotiations are ongoing and one of the sticking points could be a parking facility for the expanded Weather Channel offices.
“To be honest with you, (off the record) none of these discussions have really provided us with any type compelling incentives for us to stay in Cobb County. I am just being honest here,” Angell wrote to Mathis in an email. “Our senior management feels that they would be making a significant investment to stay here and as far as I know, The Weather Channel has never historically asked for any incentives from Cobb County. The property tax abatement is also not a compelling incentive at the current amount, and in fact would cost us to pursue that option. Nobody has focused on any incentives for a parking build, which is our most current challenge to solve.”
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