While Boston ultimately won the competition for General Electric Co.'s new global headquarters, Rhode Island made such a good showing that the multinational decided to locate an office of its new GE Digital division in the Ocean State.
In addition to convincing arguments that state leaders made about the business climate, talent pool and housing costs (relative to Boston and elsewhere), GE Digital is counting on a number of incentives that were expected to be approved publicly by the R.I. Commerce Corp.
What is not public, however, is the package of incentives that the Raimondo administration offered the parent company to relocate its HQ from Connecticut to the Ocean State. And that is how it should be.
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and her economic-development team have developed a series of new support, business-attraction and investment incentives that appear to be putting Rhode Island in the consideration set for companies after years of little such activity.
To give away how Gov. Raimondo and company made such a positive impression with GE executives would tie their hands in other potential negotiations down the road.
So the administration should hold fast and not give in to pressure to open up the entire playbook under the heading of public input and transparency. Once a deal is reached, the time to discuss the efficacy or fairness of a specific idea will come. Before that, though, and Rhode Island could find itself with many potential deals disappearing before they have had a chance to develop. •