ANDERSON — An Anderson steel cutting company plans to invest $7 million to expand its facility and operations, and hire 10 more people. The expansion will happen here as long as the city provides it with a pair of 10-year tax abatements that would save it more than $1 million.
Precision Strip, located at 3518 W. 73rd St., takes large coils of steel and slices them down for many clients, including steel mills that then sell the pieces for use in vehicles and appliances.
Precision Strip started in 1977 in Minster, Ohio, and has 11 locations throughout Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Mexico, according to the company website. The Anderson location opened in 2000.
The Anderson plant currently includes a 152,000-square-foot facility on 25 acres, said Gregg Pleiman, the local production manager. It plans to add a 72,000-square-foot expansion at a cost of about $3.3 million.
Precision Strip will also invest $3.7 million in new equipment, he said. The new line will produce 200 million pounds of steel a year.
The plant employs 42 people. Over the next three years the expansion will create at least 10 new jobs in entry level positions including truck drivers, crane operators, packing associates and material handlers, Pleiman said.
“We train people and make them skilled workers,” he said.
Construction will begin this month and the work would be done by May, said Tracy Drees, the Ohio-based chief financial officer.
About six workers will be hired in January and people can begin applying now, Pleiman said. The pay starts at $18 an hour, Drees said.
“We have consistently upgraded with no abatements, but this is such a large upgrade that we need help,” Drees said.
The council gave its initial approval of the tax abatements with a 9-0 vote on Thursday. A public hearing will he held at the next regular meeting starting at 7 p.m. Sept. 13, where people can comment on the project or abatements. The council will give its final vote that night.
Even with the new abatement, the company will continue to pay 100 percent of its existing taxes, which are about $200,000 a year, according to documents provided by Greg Winkler, the city’s economic development director.
The company said that if the city didn’t grant it tax abatements that it would expand its operations in Ohio instead, Winkler said. That would be a loss for Anderson, he said.
If the company does invest here with its expansion and new equipment, it would pay a total of almost $6 million on its existing and new property over 20 years.
That is almost $2 million in extra taxes that would be paid to the city during that time plus the additional payroll.
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