An economic development agreement between the City of Austin and Visa Inc. moved one step closer to consideration Nov. 28 after Austin City Council set a public hearing on the matter for 4 p.m. Dec. 6.

The economic development agreement would require Visa to establish a Global IT Center in Austin, investing about $18.7 million in real property improvements and $8.7 million business personal property. Real property is defined as land or anything attached to it, and personal property applies to items that are not attached to the land but are subject to ownership. The information technology center would create about 794 full-time jobs with an average annual wage of $113,351. The proposed site for the IT center is in the Research Park III building at 12301 Research Blvd.

Dave Porter, senior vice president of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, which promoted Austin as a viable location for the IT center, thanked the council for approving previous incentive proposals and encouraged members to move forward with the proposal for Visa.

"Like all previous deals, this one is again a net-positive financial impact to the city's bottom line of $6.8 million after the incentive package over the 10-year period," Porter said.

Under the agreement, the city would provide a 10-year, performance-based grant of $250 per new job per year. The estimated cost of the grant is about $1.56 million.

Kevin Johns, director of economic growth with the city, said Visa scored high on the economic development matrix used to determine the percentage of possible incentive.

"In summary, [Visa] scored 90 out of 100, which represents Visa increasing its Austin presence as far as renovating 175,000 square feet within an existing facility for its Global IT Center," Johns said.

According to a WebLOCI Fiscal Impact Analysis, an analytic program used by the city, the total direct benefit of bringing the IT center to Austin is about $21.8 million over a 10-year period, while costs are expected to be about $15 million over the same period. The net benefit to the city is estimated to be about $6.8 million.

A few community members spoke against the economic development agreement, including the qualifications needed to fill new jobs that would be created by the IT center, and subsidizing jobs with salaries of about $113,000 a year.

"That's a nice salary," said resident Laura Pressley, who spoke at the special meeting. "In that salary, a person can afford a $340,000 home because the rule of thumb is typically three [times] what your salary is. The average home in Austin is $210,000. So why are our citizens subsidizing a bunch of people to have homes more valuable than our average?"

Councilwoman Laura Morrison raised a concern that creating more jobs in the technology sector could lead to increased competition for other companies.

"We really have an overabundance of high-tech people that aren't currently employed in the city," Morrison said. "On the other hand, there's a demand for high-tech people, so in a situation like this, we want to be careful that we're not necessarily promoting competition for the high-tech people in the City of Austin where there's a bunch of new jobs opening that we might be supporting, and it's actually creating a hardship for the existing companies because they are losing their employees."

Jeremy Martin, senior vice president of government relations and regional infrastructure with the chamber, said with a little training, Austin's labor force could meet the needs of an expansion in the technology industry.

"We've identified that we do have a very skilled labor force, meaning that they can be trained up for the specific types of jobs that are necessary for high-tech," Martin said. "We have a great liberal arts student base from The University of Texas, and they just need to have the computer training."

Austin is competing with other cities in other parts of the country, including Colorado and Virginia, for the IT center. If the economic development agreement is approved, city officials are not sure when Visa Inc. will make the final decision about where to put the IT center.