A local developer is getting some help from Seymour City Council to construct a shell or spec building in the Eastside Industrial Park.
TDAK Development Inc., in partnership with Seymour Industrial Corp., is investing $1.4 million to build the 70,000-square-foot facility. The property is in the 2000 block of Killion Avenue and is owned by Seymour Industrial Corp.
Construction is scheduled to begin in February and be completed by the end of May.
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City officials approved a tax abatement for the project Monday, holding TDAK exempt from paying full property taxes for a period of 10 years. For the first year of the abatement, the company will not have to pay any taxes on the property. Each year thereafter, they will be required to pay a percentage, which increases each year until the abatement expires.
The building will remain empty until a suitable tenant is found, said Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.
Plump is responsible for marketing the facility to new companies looking to relocate and existing companies wanting to expand.
“More than half of the inquiries that our office gets for businesses looking for locations, companies want a building, and the inventory that we have currently in Jackson County is pretty slim,” Plump said.
He hopes it will take two to three years or less to fill the property. That is about how long it took the last time a spec building was built, he said.
In 2007, Golden Endeavors, a subsidiary of Columbus Container, purchased a spec building in the Eastside Industrial Park and now leases the facility 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 approved for tax abatement.
“Council has done this in the past,” Plump said of providing tax incentives for spec buildings. “The way abatement works, you must bring it on the front end of a project. You can’t wait until the building is already up and something goes in because once the building construction has started, it’s too late for abatement.”
Once a tenant is found for the building, the abatement will be transferred to the new company, and future abatement may be granted for building expansions and/or equipment purchases.
Plump described the project as a “win-win” for the city.
“We get a very marketable building,” he said. “This building differentiates from most spec buildings that have been put up around the state. It’s going to have good height and things companies really want.”
Once a business locates to the building, there will the potential for job creation, Plump said.
Councilman John Reinhart, who also is a member of the Seymour Plan Commission, questioned what kind of floor would be in the building and if it would have to be changed later depending on what type of business fills the space.
Andy Royalty, president of TDAK, said he is planning on starting with a typical concrete base.
“We want to wait until we have a buyer and let them determine, do they need a six-inch floor, do they need a 12-inch, do they need pits,” Royalty said. “We want to try to leave as much flexibility there for Jim when he is showing this property to keep the cost down for the user.”