LEBANON — Hachette Book Group plans to expand again after the Lebanon City Council approved a new tax abatement for the planned addition at its Wednesday meeting.
Attorney Kent Frandsen shared with the council that the company has been in the community since 1996. It started with a 500,000-square-foot building, and then constructed a 300,000-squarefoot addition six years ago. Wednesday, he announced the company’s plans to add another 215,000 square feet, taking the total footage to just more than one million.
The addition will cost $6.1 million, Frandsen said. The plan includes investing $876,000 in new logistic distribution and IT equipment, in addition to hiring 10 new full-time employees, with a total compensation of $366,000. That will bring the number of total employees to 292.
The property is already designated as an economic revitalization area, Frandsen said, which allows the council to grant a taxabatement without a public hearing. The abatement was granted for 10 years of real and personal property for the addition and the new equipment. The original building’s abatement has already ended, and the second addition’s abatement is about halfway through.
Jerry Cummings, a senior vice president at Hachette, also addressed the council. He said this distribution center is the only one Hachette has, and this expansion will allow the company to take on more business while maintaining its current business.
The 10-year abatement is a traditional tax abatement, meaning that 100 percent of taxes will be deducted in the first year, 90 percent the second year, 80 percent the third year, and so on until the company is paying 100 percent of the taxes by year 11. The economic revitalization area is part of a TIF, or tax increment finance, district, meaning all taxes collected within the district stay within the district and are used for infrastructure improvements.
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