Cloud-based software and services provider MOBI Wireless Management, could expand its Zionsville location, adding more than 500 jobs.
But the company is also looking elsewhere, Boone County Economic Development Corp. executive director Molly Whitehead told the Boone County Commissioners Monday.
The commissioners approved, 2-0, a $180,000 incentive package for MOBI, to be paid over a three-year period. The incentives would be tied to the number of new jobs created, Whitehead said, rising from $55,000 the first year to $65,000 in the third. MOBI would spend more than $11 million in capital improvements for its Zionsville location at 6100 W. 96th Street in the Northwest Tech Park.
“This is a competitive deal for us,” Whitehead warned the commissioners. While MOBI’s Zionsville location is the only Indiana site being considered for expansion, the company also is considering a location in Arizona, near its largest client.
“If they were to locate out west, it would provide them with a time zone advantage,” Whitehead said.
Whitehead told the Boone County Redevelopment Commission of MOBI’s plans at that board’s meeting on Friday.
“The company is ready to move ahead with plans to expand in Indiana, all pending local incentive approvals,” Whitehead told RDC president Tom Lingafelter, County Attorney Bob Clutter and Commissioners administrative assistant Karen Lasley-Maue in an email Thursday.
The incentives would be reimbursable cash grants, Whitehead said in the email.
That money would be used for what Whitehead called “unique purchases,” such as proprietary software.
Zionsville Mayor Tim Haak said MOBI had been expected to grow, but not at this rate.
“The speed is, I think, what is surprising,” Haak said. He has toured the company and believes the environment it creates for employees is a big factor in that speed. “You can see why they are growing so fast,” he said.
“It shows one of Zionsville’s own tech companies is growing,” Haak said. “The Browning tech park down there is healthy; it’s got a lot of the right kind of activity going on.”
MOBI employs 307 people. The company would by 2020 add 521 jobs, paying $20 an hour or more, excluding benefits, and invest $11.1 million in additional office space and for hardware and software.
Should MOBI expand in Zionsville, the county would receive an estimated $380,000 more in personal property tax revenue, as well as the additional county option income taxes created by the firm’s workforce, Whitehead said.
Commissioner Jeff Wolfe emphasized that the incentive package was not the important issue.
“It seems like a lot of times the buzz that goes around with these projects has to do with the incentive package,” Wolfe said. “Everybody has to understand how huge a win this would be for Boone County.”
That win would include the creation of one of the largest employee-benefits packages offered by a county-based company, and some of the highest pay for employees, Wolfe said.
“It is a company that has met and exceeded all of its initial goals,” Wolfe said. “They’ve been great partners in the community.”
Among the company’s clients are Ford, Proctor and Gamble and IBM.
MOBI was founded in 2009, a spin-off from Bluefish Wireless. Whitehead said it had projected it would employ 60 people.