WINDSOR — A Minnesota company is considering locating a new $25 million, 82,000-square-foot manufacturing plant on Marshall Phelps Road by next summer, and hiring at least 70 local workers.
The Economic Development Committee on Wednesday approved the company’s request for a tax break, which still must be approved by the Town Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission.
If the project goes forward, Fabcon Precast, a national maker of industrial and commercial concrete wall panels, would contribute nearly $1 million to the town over the four years.
The only hitch is that the town has competition: New Britain and a city in Massachusetts.
Ryan Ksiazek, Fabcon corporate project manager, said the initial site list included Southington, Killingly, and Massachusetts municipalities Springfield, East Longmeadow, Orange, Westfield, and Wilbraham.
Fabcon’s nationwide customer base includes “the Amazons, Wal-Marts, and Sam’s Clubs,” Ksiazek said.
“They all have our exterior walls, and we do about 400 buildings a year, 12,000 since we’ve been in business,” he said.
So why Windsor?
“This is a market that we’ve already been selling to, from Boston down to New York City, and to Providence and up to Albany, as well as out to Oklahoma and down to Texas,” Ksiazek said, “and the Windsor-Springfield area from central Massachusetts down through central Connecticut is central to that market.”
The problem, he said, is that transporting panels is expensive, so having a facility closer and central to this New England market would be beneficial.
If Windsor wins, Fabcon would build its plant on 28 acres at 775 Marshall Phelps Road between Service Steel Aerospace Corp. and Hurley Metal Fabrication. It would hire 70 to 75 full-time local workers over five years at higher than the area’s average pay, as well as local construction contractors and workers.
On Wednesday, the committee unanimously approved Fabcon’s request for a 50 percent tax abatement — rather than the usual 40 percent — which gives the town about $921,000 in tax revenues over four years in exchange for $596,000 in tax relief.
“That’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Ksiazek said.
The 40 percent limit is one the Town Council usually offers in similar cases. That would give the town $1 million and $477,000 to Fabcon.
Ksiazek said Fabcon qualifies for the extra 10 percent by meeting town requirements for a 5 percent bump-up for paying workers more than the median wage for similar positions in Hartford County. It gets another 5 percent for using high-quality materials on the building’s exterior, and also using sustainable technologies, such as co-generation of electricity.
The jobs would be for a plant manager, a production manager, a safety manager, a quality control manager, first-line supervisors, office staff, production assistants, maintenance workers, and other skilled, semi-skilled, and entry-level positions.
Ksiazek said Fabcon is at 106 percent of the average pay in Hartford County, and in some cases up to 148 percent, paying $18 to $49 per hour plus 40 percent for benefits. Field crews, he said, would make about $62 per hour with the benefits package.
“We bring the type of jobs that are rarely available in a community for high school graduates to actually be able to make a good living wage and to have a substantial number of jobs,” he said. “We’re a good partner with the community. We raise thousands of dollars for groups like the United Way and put those dollars right back into the community.”
As for the competition, Ksiazek said all have positives and negatives.
Unlike Windsor’s site, New Britain’s site is in an enterprise zone and has better incentives overall, though Windsor is a little bit better in logistics and operations, “which is why we’re asking for the 50 percent tax abatement,” he said.
Also, Massachusetts has some other benefits that Connecticut does not, he said.
It’s a “neck-and-neck race between the competing variables that go into it,” Ksiazek said. “It’s not just a matter of who’s giving the most incentives. It’s labor pool availability, central to the market, outbound logistics, inbound logistics, and site layout, how easy it is to operate within that site. We’ve got probably 100 different things we’re looking at on the master spreadsheet to figure out what the best location is for us.”
Ksiazek said a decision would come in the next eight weeks, “maybe even sooner.”
