A local developer plans to complete the interior of a spec building in the Eastside Industrial Park to lease the property to an industrial client.

TDAK Development, owned by Andy Royalty of Seymour, constructed the 70,000-square-foot building at 6013 Elsner Drive in 2016. At that time, the Seymour City Council granted a $1.4 million tax abatement for the project.

On Monday, the council approved a second request for tax abatement on a $1.2 million investment to help TDAK make improvements to complete the building. Those improvements will include the installation of a floor, docks, heating and lighting.

The idea behind constructing a shell building is not to finish it so when a company comes in, it can decide what type of features it needs.

Both abatements are good for a period of 10 years. For the first year, the company will not have to pay any taxes on the property. Each year thereafter, TDAK will be required to pay a percentage, which increases each year until the abatement expires.

Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., spoke on behalf of TDAK during Monday’s meeting.

At the time the council approved the first abatement in January 2016, Plump explained the benefit to Seymour of having a spec or shell building in place.

“It simply put us in position to be able to market a building and save a company as much as six months if they would choose to come to Seymour,” he said.

Plump said negotiations are underway between TDAK and another company to lease the building.

“I’m happy to say that we are in the stretch run to finalize a user for the building to a point where there are some lease discussions going on even as we speak,” he said.

Since TDAK is the owner, not the user of the building, there are no new jobs being created at this time, Plump said.

The situation is similar to when Golden Endeavors, a subsidiary of Columbus Container, purchased a spec building in the Eastside Industrial Park in 2007. That building is leased to Celadon, a company that provides logistics services for Cummins. In 2014, Golden Endeavors doubled the size of the warehouse with a 100,000-square-foot expansion.

That project also was granted a tax abatement.

The finishing work on TDAK’s spec building was expected to begin this month and be completed by the beginning of October.