InfoCision tax break approved

Grants will pay JFS’
occupancy costs at Oakhill.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners have approved a 60 percent, 10-year real estate tax abatement for expansion of an Austintown telemarketing center.

The abatement, approved Thursday for InfoCision Management Corp., covers a 25,000-square-foot addition, which will double the size of the company’s call center at 5740 Interstate Drive and create 200 jobs over the next three years, said Walter M. Good, economic development director for the Regional Chamber.

The project cost is $6.1 million, including the new building and its equipment. The company makes outbound calls and takes inbound calls for its clients. Austintown trustees approved the abatement Monday.

Some 500 people now work at the Austintown call center, which has operated for more than 10 years, said Steve Brubaker, InfoCision’s senior vice president for corporate affairs. The company also has call centers in Boardman and downtown Youngstown.

“In our business, it has been difficult given the offshore competition, so having this type of incentive can certainly help us to even the playing field and keep those jobs right here in our community,” Brubaker said of the tax abatement. InfoCision is the world’s largest fundraiser for nonprofit organizations, he said.

The commissioners also approved an agreement with the county’s Department of Job and Family Services, under which the department will pay $1,395,000 into the county treasury to cover utility and other costs associated with the first year of the department’s occupancy of the county-owned Oakhill Renaissance Place. The money will come from JFS’ state and federal grant income.

“As we add more tenants to Oakhill, that number will come down because we will spread our cost allocation over a larger tenant base,” said Anthony Traficanti, chairman of the commissioners.

Besides the JFS money, the county derives almost $400,000 in combined annual rental income from tenants at Oakhill, which include the city health department and Head Start.

JFS moved in July from rented quarters on the city’s East Side to Oakhill, where it occupies almost 114,000 square feet. Located at 345 Oak Hill Ave., Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, which the county bought last year in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The commissioners also agreed to advertise for bids to build an access road from Struthers Road, together with water and sewer lines, to the Mahoning Valley Health Care Center, a 66-bed nursing home and assisted living center under construction on a 10-acre site in Springfield Township.

The $500,000 cost of that project is being shared equally by the state and Windsor House, which owns the new $8.3 million facility that will create 70 jobs. The bid opening will be at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 9 in the county purchasing office.

Traficanti said he wasn’t sure if the commissioners would hold a special meeting to put a proposed county-wide 0.25 percent sales tax on the March ballot to raise $7.5 million annually for Western Reserve Transit Authority bus service. The ballot deadline is Thursday, and commissioners want more information on the proposal, he said.

The next regular commissioners’ meeting will be at 10 a.m. Dec. 27 in the county courthouse basement.