Tarrant County delays vote on tax break for electric truck plant proposed for Fort Worth

Tarrant County officials on Tuesday delayed a vote on a potential tax abatement for California-based Rivian Automotive, which is searching for a 2,000-acre site for a factory.

A site in the Walsh development is one of the finalists. Bloomberg News reported last month that the Fort Worth location was the front-runner.

Tarrant County’s potential tax break, alongside an approved tax break from the city of Fort Worth and a planned tax break from Parker County, is intended as an incentive to lure Rivian to the Metroplex.

Rivian projects investing $5 billion and adding 7,500 full-time jobs by the end of 2027. If those projections were met at the Fort Worth-area site, it would make Rivian one of the largest employers in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Tarrant County commissioners were scheduled to vote Tuesday on a tax break of about $35.8 million, which equates to a decade-long 70% abatement on the value that Rivian would add to the site.

But officials instead delayed the vote until a later meeting.

In a statement, Tarrant County spokesperson Bill Hanna said the county is working with Rivian “to finalize some of the information necessary to complete our tax abatement agreement documents.”

“Tarrant County is excited to still be a finalist for the location of the Rivian manufacturing facility,” Hanna said in the statement. He added that the tax break will be back on the county commissioners’ agenda at some point after next week’s meeting.

On Tuesday, the Tarrant County Central Labor Council released a statement in approval of the delay. Council president Brian Golden urged increased transparency throughout the process and said that residents deserve assurances that the tax break will help create “high-quality jobs with decent wages and benefits.”

Tarrant County is behind the city in its abatement approval process, but appears to be ahead of Parker County.

The city of Fort Worth in August approved a $440 million tax break for Rivian, which equates to 85% of maintenance and operations property taxes over 15 years. (In an email, city spokesperson Michelle Gutt declined to comment on the county’s delayed vote.)

And Parker County has not yet determined the details of its abatement, Parker County Judge Pat Dean told the Star-Telegram on Tuesday.

“Parker County is considering an abatement,” Dean said. “We feel very good about what our chances are. We have a good product to offer in the Metroplex here.”

Staff writer Harrison Mantas contributed to this story.