LORDSTOWN COUNCIL Auto-parts producer receives tax deal

Trumbull commissioners are expected to consider the abatement Wednesday.
THE VINDICATOR, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO
By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LORDSTOWN -- A French auto-parts producer has cleared the first hurdle in opening a plant here.
Faurecia Exhaust Systems Inc. plans to produce auto exhaust systems for General Motors' new line of small cars, the Pontiac Pursuit and the Chevy Cobalt.
The Toledo-based company -- a subsidiary of Faurecia, Europe's third-largest automobile equipment supplier -- requested financial assistance from the village with a tax abatement, which council unanimously approved Monday.
Trumbull County commissioners must approve the abatement and are expected to address the request when they meet Wednesday.
Faurecia says the abatement is needed to reduce start-up and operating costs.
"General Motors has imposed very small profit margins on this program, to compensate for their low-cost financing offered to their customers," the abatement application reads.
About the abatement
Council agreed to grant a 55-percent, 10-year abatement on close to $1.7 million in personal property. Faurecia Lordstown, as the company would be known, would lease a 43,000-square-foot building in Hays Industrial Park, 1849 Bailey Road, and employee 15 to 20 people full time.
"They are leasing about 17,000 more square feet than they originally anticipated," Mayor Arno A. Hill said.
The abatement does not include the building, but does cover $750,000 in machinery and equipment, $280,000 in furniture and fixtures and $666,000 in inventory.
The company plans to hire four or five people by the end of the year, with the rest to be hired by early 2005.
The building to house the company was built about two years ago by Oakley Industries of Detroit, which planned to outsource wheel assemblies for GM's Cavalier and Sunbird car lines. A tax abatement for Oakley was rescinded recently because the plans fell through and the company never moved into the area, Hill said.
Five-year contract
Faurecia has a five-year contract to manufacture all Cobalt exhaust systems. The company needed a site close to the assembly plant because GM wants part delivered as they are needed, rather than storing them.
Faurecia has more than 150 production sites in 27 counties, while Faurecia Exhaust Systems boasts seven U.S. plants: five in Ohio and one each in Kentucky and Indiana.
slshaulis@vindy.com