Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140100
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
If an additional $125,000 to build a road to the plant is secured, the total cost of the package would be more than $405,000 - likely the largest incentive package ever doled out to a business in the county.
In return, the county expects to receive $254,200 in facilities and equipment taxes between 1996 and 1998, and less thereafter.
The plant is expected to employ 25 workers by 1996.
The county's Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Monday night approving a $97,250 incentive package that would pay half the cost of the site's 13 acres and half the cost of installing curb and gutters on an extended road to the plant.
The state announced Tuesday that it would match the county's effort toward buying the land with an $81,250 gift from the Governor's Opportunity Fund. The Virginia Department of Economic Development will give Wolverine $12,075 to help train new workers.
Blacksburg Town Manager Ron Secrist said Tuesday that the town would extend water and sewer facilities with a value of $73,600 to the new plant. Plus, he said the town would match the county's $16,000 offer for curb and gutter materials with labor costs to install them.
"Wolverine's been a long-time tenant in the industrial park," Secrist said. "We know who we're going to be working with."
In addition, the supervisors passed a separate resolution asking the state to provide funding to extend a road to the site, which would actually be situated in the county just outside Blacksburg's corporate limits.
Dan Brugh, resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation's Christiansburg office, said extending Trade Street to the planned 50,000 square-foot plant would cost $125,000 - the amount of money left in the department's Industrial Access Road funding for the county.
The department allocated $300,000 in such funding to be used in the county this year; the Commonwealth Transportation Board voted in August to use $175,000 toward extending a road from U.S. 460 to a site in the Elliston-Lafayette Industrial Park.
Brugh said it's not a given that the board would approve the funding, but, "to me it looks favorable." He expects action to take place in February.
Al Guarino, Wolverine's plant manager, was pleased Tuesday after all the governmental agencies had released details of the deal.
"You better believe it," he said. "We don't know how far this will take us." With 13 acres to build upon, the company will be able to easily expand again on-site if business conditions warrant it.
A news release from the county's economic development department said Wolverine plans to double the size of the new facility and employ an additional 30 workers by 1998, but Guarino said those plans aren't set in stone.
He said, though, that much of the product made at the new plant will be processed through the existing facility, which could lead to the hiring of more workers there.
Wolverine, owned by Cincinnati's Eagle-Picher Industries Inc., moved into the industrial park in 1973, and its current plant has nearly tripled in size - to 147,000 square feet - since then. It makes brake compressors and other gaskets and noise-control products for cars and employs about 300 workers.
The new plant's production line will laminate gasket material to be used for automobile head gaskets.
by CNB