By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Herald Bulletin
The city of Anderson rolled out the welcome mat for Nestle Corp. — though not by name — Tuesday.
Though local officials still won’t reveal the name of the company code-named Project Echo, the proposed project would bring a 1.2-million square-foot food-processing plant to Anderson and create some 230-plus jobs.
“I think it’s very important for the city that we do this,” Redevelopment Commission member Kevin Sulc said.
He, along with the three other members in attendance Tuesday, voted to expand the city’s tax increment financing district to include the 197 acres destined for Project Echo.
They also approved offering the company economic sweeteners using TIF money, like an $8 million to $10 million taxable bond issue to help build the proposed plant. The loan would be paid back with the new taxes.
Another $9.5 million to $16 million TIF bond would be used to turn the 197-acre farm field into a factory-ready piece of land with improvements to roads, sewers and electrical power.
Those figures, Deputy Economic Development Director Linda Dawson said, are a purposely high estimate.
“We can always use less,” she said.
Though commission members like Sulc and Commission President Mark Lamey expressed their excitement for the job potential, Dawson stressed that the plant is not a sure thing.
“This is still a potential project, not an actual project,” she said.
Before this expansion, 20 percent of Anderson was a TIF district. That means that all new commercial property taxes for the last 15 years for most of the city, or six years for the Flagship Enterprise Center, go to a special fund set aside for economic development.
Last year, about $2.5 million came into that fund.
The latest addition is located west of the Flagship Enterprise Center and bounded by 73rd Street on the north, Interstate 69 on the south, Layton Road on the west and County Road 350 West on the east.
The 197 acres are contiguous to The Flagship business park, which is already a TIF district, and therefore legally eligible to join the TIF district.
While local officials refuse to mention Nestle by name, a newspaper report from Lima, Ohio, let the cat out of the bag in May. Quoting local economic development officials, the paper reported that Ohio county had lost its bid for a Nestle plant to Anderson. Company officials have also declined to comment.