A Midwest business plans to open a warehouse and service office in Seymour’s Eastside Industrial Park.
BTS5 Inc. of Chicago expects to be up and running within the next 90 days to serve customers in the area.
The company supplies counterweights and other products for forklifts and agricultural and construction uses. Customers include Toyota, Hyster-Yale Group, Caterpillar, UniCarriers and Terex.
Brian Holbrook, North American sales manager with BTS5, said the company chose Seymour over other cities because of its centralized location between Illinois and Kentucky.
“It’s the best of all worlds for us,” he told city council members during a meeting Monday night at Seymour City Hall.
The company is finalizing the purchase of the former Mid-America Veneer facility at 1635 E. Fourth Street Road. At 50,700 square feet, the building offers plenty of opportunity for growth and expansion.
Local real estate agent Rob Millman assisted the company in searching for and acquiring the site.
Seymour City Council approved tax abatements Monday for $538,750 in renovations and improvements to the building and property in addition to $185,550 in new equipment, including forklifts, a paint booth, a sweeper and a crane, for a total investment of $724,300.
BTS5 expects to begin renovations this month and will hire an estimated four employees to begin working at the office, Holbrook said.
Those jobs will pay on average $16 an hour for annual salaries totaling $132,000, said Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.
“We are pleased to welcome BTS5 to Jackson County,” Plump said. “We know they have growth plans and will work to help them achieve that growth.”
The company’s products are manufactured at three foundries in China with warehousing and logistics services in the United States and Europe.
“We pride ourselves on tailoring solutions to meet our customer needs with the highest quality and cost-effectiveness while mitigating risk,” Holbrook said. “Our differentiation is that our foundries and our qualified partners are ISO certified to ensure meeting our customers’ quality standards.
“We have a local engineering team in China to provide daily management support, and our global team speaks five languages — English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish — to better serve our customers,” he added.