Mayor Megan Barry’s administration is prepared to give $2.85 million in city incentives to Philips as part of the Netherlands-based health technology giant's planned expansion to Nashville — one that could bring as many as 815 jobs to downtown.

Philips North America, which first said in August it was exploring Middle Tennessee for a new administrative and technology center, agreed weeks later on a short-term lease to temporarily locate in the downtown Nashville City Center at 511 Union Street.

The company plans to hire 815 employees in waves in Nashville over the next two years, beginning with 250 employees by June 30. The average annual wage of the positions is estimated to be $60,000.

Barry has proposed giving the company a $500 per-job cash grant per each job over the next seven years, which would equate to an average of $407,500 per year if each of the expected hires is made. Payments of the jobs grant would begin during the 2019-20 fiscal year.

The new Philips location — to be dubbed the “Center of Expertise” — will focus on commercial operations, customer service, general operations, finance, human resources, information technology, marketing, procurement and quality. The company plans to look for a permanent location within close proximity to the Nashville City Center site.

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Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration is also expected to provide state incentives for Philips’ expansion, but how much has not been disclosed.

The Metro Council is set to take up the city’s incentive package on Tuesday.

“The health care sector is the best opportunity for Nashville to build a meaningful presence in the technology industry and adding Philips’ Center of Expertise will help strengthen the case for Nashville as the leading city for healthcare technology in the U.S,” Mayor’s Office Economic and Community Development Director Matt Wiltshire and other members of Barry’s administration wrote in a letter to the council Monday.

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The letter cited a Brookings Institute report from last year that said health care-related companies account for more than 100,000 jobs and more than $12.5 billion in economic output for the Nashville metro area.

Barry, who is in her third year as mayor, has shown a willingness to turn to incentives in the name of economic expansion, continuing a practice that was a staple of former Mayor Karl Dean's administration.

Known best for its household consumer products, Philips has a health care technology segment that employs about 71,000 workers in 100 countries, including 18,000 employees in the United States. One hundred and forty of those are in two locations in Middle Tennessee, where the focus is sales, service and imaging equipment parts and transit.

The addition of the Center for Expertise facility downtown is not expected to halt the operations of the existing Philips offices, according to the mayor’s office, but some job functions could move to the new office.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Joeygarrison.