By John Martin, Evansville Courier & Press
Mead Johnson Nutrition is investing $32.8 million to expand and renovate its Evansville facility, where a product line and about 35 jobs will be added by the end of 2010, it was announced Monday.
Evansville was chosen for the project ahead of Zeeland, Mich., which previously was the only location where Mead Johnson manufactured powdered infant formula.
Mead Johnson is expanding the product's production because of growing consumer demand.
"The new facility will allow us to better meet consumers' needs and help fulfill our mission to create nutritional products trusted to give infants and children the best start in life," said Jeff Jobe, Mead Johnson Nutrition senior vice president, Global Supply Chain, in a statement released by Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel's office.
Weinzapfel announced the expansion along with Greg Wathen, executive director of the Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana.
Besides the added jobs, Weinzapfel said the expansion will ensure the retention of 200 or so existing Mead Johnson Nutrition jobs.
The news is welcome "especially on the heels of the Whirlpool announcement and all that's going on in this economy ... there's tremendous competition between communities for these kinds of jobs," Weinzapfel said.
Whirlpool Corp. has announced plans to shut down Evansville operations next year.
Local officials, said Wathen, "laid out a very clear case for this investment to be made here."
The city plans to create a new tax-increment financing district, allowing Mead Johnson a 10-year phase-in on property taxes paid on the new investment.
City Council must still approve the new district.
Ten years is the longest tax phase-in allowed under state law. Wathen said it amounts to a 50-percent reduction in taxes owed on the expansion during the time period.
The move doesn't impact the amount of property taxes Mead Johnson pays on its existing Evansville facility.
Weinzapfel said the city would not have been the beneficiary of Mead Johnson's new investment "if we had not provided the incentive."
Additionally, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. is offering Mead Johnson up to $3.25 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $28,500 in training grants.
The company's Evansville facility now only produces liquid infant formula products. Adding the power formula manufacturing here "will generate greater flexibility in our global supply chain network," Jobe said.