Officials OK tax break

By Peter H. Milliken

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County commissioners approved a 60-percent, 15-year real-estate tax abatement for a Canton-based steel processing company that plans to invest $60 million to build and equip a new manufacturing plant in North Jackson.

The 200,000-square-foot Republic Special Metals Inc. plant will initially create 50 to 60 jobs with a $50,000 average annual salary, said Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the county commissioners.

“This is a special day for Mahoning County. For many years, this community has seen the loss of jobs. This time, opportunity is knocking on our door,” Traficanti said of the highly automated plant, which will melt and forge steel and specialty alloys.

The plant will be built on 109 acres of vacant land on South Bailey Road south of the Macy’s and Things Remembered warehouses, said Walter M. Good, the Regional Chamber’s economic development director.

The abatement passed Wednesday with Commissioners Traficanti and John A. McNally IV voting in favor of it and Commissioner David N. Ludt absent.

The tax abatement “is the final piece of the puzzle” for the company to proceed with the project, said Mark Milliron, the company’s project manager.

The privately owned company was once the specialty metals division of the former Republic Steel Co.

Republic Special Metals Inc. chose the North Jackson site because it has sufficient electric power availability to accommodate future plant expansion and because of its proximity to Interstate 76, company headquarters and some of the company’s key raw materials suppliers, Milliron said.

The Canadian-owned company hopes to begin construction this fall and have the plant operating about a year later, Milliron said. “There’s a high likelihood that we’ll meet with success. ...We’re planning to double the size of the operation,” in North Jackson over the next several years, he said.

Assuming the plant’s real estate value is assessed at $12.75 million, the company will pay $1,472,580 in real estate taxes; and local government and the schools will forgo $2,208,855 over the life of the abatement, Good said.

Sixty-one percent of the forgone revenue would have gone to the Jackson-Milton School District; and the remainder would have gone to the county, Jackson Township, the county’s Career and Technical Center, Mill Creek MetroParks and other recipients, according to the county auditor’s office.

A 5.5-mill, five-year tax renewal levy to raise about $1 million a year for emergency expenses for the Jackson-Milton schools failed for the third time in this month’s special election.

“Given the sheer capital investment in this project, it was important to offset their costs so the site would be attractive” compared to competing locations the company considered, Good said of the length of the tax abatement. Without the new plant, no new tax revenue would be generated, Good said.

In addition, the county’s investment in roads and water and sewer service to create “shovel-ready” conditions in North Jackson were critical to the company’s consideration of building a plant there, Good said.

“When you put the infrastructure in, people will come,” Traficanti said. The new plant will melt steel and alloys in a vacuum induction melter, Milliron said. “This is a world-class process to produce high-quality alloy steels and nickel superalloys for the jet aircraft engine markets,” he added.

The plant will also have a state-of-the-art hydraulic radial forge to convert ingots and blooms into high-quality forged products, he said.

“We can melt and shape as well as heat-treat and do some finishing of these products,” in the new plant, Milliron said.