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Youngstown council to consider a $369,000 grant for a possible $81.5 million project
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation Wednesday to give a Vallourec Star sister company a $369,000 water and wastewater utility grant for its potential $81.5 million steel-pipe threading facility.
The grant is part of a development agreement signed last Thursday by the city’s board of control with VAM USA LLC.
But for the utility grant to be given, city council must approve it.
The agreement won’t take effect until VAM, a Vallourec Star sister company, agrees to build the mill in the city’s Ohio Works Business Park.
A decision is expected in less than 30 days, and VAM’s building the facility in Youngstown “looks promising,” said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
The agreement with VAM also includes a 10-year, 75-percent real-property-tax abatement that would save the company $6 million with VAM paying $2 million over that decade.
City council approved the tax abatement last month.
The city also would wave water and wastewater tap-in fees and permits, and it’s up to VAM whether it wants to buy the property or lease it from Youngstown.
The company would build the plant at the former Genmak Steel site, about a mile away from Vallourec Star’s facilities in the Brier Hill Business Park. The Brier Hill location includes the company’s $1.1 billion expansion plant that opened in October 2012.
VAM plans to hire 84 full-time workers by next year with an estimated payroll of $2.9 million to $3.7 million, according to its tax-abatement application. That number is likely to grow, Bozanich said.
The Genmak building was constructed in 2003 for the leveling and cutting of steel coil and storage, and has been empty for a few years.
VAM USA is a joint venture company between Vallourec, Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metals Corp. and Sumitomo Corp.