Oracle is trying to convince reluctant tech workers to join its “world headquarters” in Nashville, Tenn., with the promise of new, spacious office space and an in-house Nobu restaurant.
A few years after moving Oracle’s headquarters from Redwood City, Calif., to Austin, Texas, co-founder Larry Ellison publicly declared Nashville its “world headquarters.”
“This is the centerpiece of our future,” Ellison, the company’s chief technology officer and former CEO, said in 2024 of Nashville’s growing importance to Oracle.
The company has pledged to invest $1.2 billion over ten years and pledge to add 8,500 jobs to the region. That same year, Tennessee leaders provided the company with a $65 million financial grant to “offset costs incurred by the company as it expands or establishes operations in the state.”
As part of Oracle’s growth in the city, it’s tied to $175 million in infrastructure improvements, such as park space on the east bank of the Cumberland River, which flows through downtown Nashville, and a pedestrian bridge connecting both sides of the river. The company can recoup its investment by repaying 50% of future property taxes, TEnasi Observation Deck the report said.
Don Watson, Oracle’s senior vice president of global real estate and facilities, previously said in a statement that the new office will “position Nashville as a hub for artificial intelligence innovation.” The office will include 2 million square feet of office space and amenities such as the upscale Nobu chain of restaurants, and Ellison will add it to properties ranging from Palo Alto, California to Florida and Lanai, Hawaii.
Oracle is reportedly offering tens of thousands of dollars in incentives to some current cloud employees in other cities to encourage them to move to Nashville, according to Bloomberg.
Oracle did not immediately respond wealthRequest for comment.
However, generous incentives and future well-appointed offices only get the company so far. The Nashville office has only about 800 employees, compared with more than 5,000 at the Kansas City, Mo., office that is home to health records company Cerner it acquired in 2021, Bloomberg reported, citing documents. Another 5,000 employees are located in Redwood City and Austin. The company’s net growth in Nashville will be just seven employees in 2025, nashville business journal the report said.
Nashville employees are reportedly reluctant to move to Nashville because the city’s geographic salary range is lower than California’s, so there could be a cap on future salaries, Bloomberg reported. Oracle plans to create 8,500 jobs in Nashville by 2031 with an average annual salary of approximately $110,000, starting in 2021, according to a press release from the Nashville Mayor’s Office.
“Oracle will bring a record number of good-paying jobs to Nashville, and they will pay all of the city’s infrastructure costs upfront. This is a huge win for our city,” then-Nashville Mayor John Cooper said in a statement.
When reached for comment, the Nashville mayor’s office mentioned wealth Nashville East Shore Development Authority, The project was created in 2024 to “encourage and promote the rapid and orderly development of the East Bank,” where Oracle’s new offices will be built.
“We remain eager to do everything we can to facilitate the construction of the new campus that has been publicly announced, and we believe Nashville will only continue to grow as a center for advanced technology and related industries in the coming years,” a spokesperson for the Nashville East Shore Development Authority said.
Still, workers are wary of committing to a headquarters that exists primarily on paper. The company still lists its Austin address in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a “U.S. field office” listing on Oracle’s website still lists Austin as its “world headquarters.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com