Cooperation fuels success for $800M Valley energy facility
Teamwork again has provided the key raw material to power construction of a mammoth $800 million clean-energy electricity-generating plant in the Mahoning Valley. Lordstown residents, school district and village leaders, plus Trumbull County and state officials all worked closely and collaboratively with Clean Energy Future Lordstown LLC of Massachusetts in planning, tweaking and restructuring the tax-incentive deal to carry this economic-development prize to fruition.
“This is definitely huge for us,” said Lordstown Schools Superintendent Terry Armstrong shortly after Village Council unanimously approved a 15-year tax incentive package for the company Tuesday. Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill chimed in, “It’s a great day for the whole Valley.”
Neither Armstrong nor Hill is mincing words. The project indeed is huge. The clean-energy plant will rise as the largest industrial project in the village since construction began on the colossal General Motors Complex more than 50 years ago. It also will be the largest construction project in the Mahoning Valley since France-based Vallourec began its $1 billion pipe-mill expansion at its Youngstown mill five years ago.
Like GM and Vallourec, this project, too, injects a bounty of benefits into our region.
The village school district will receive approximately $20 million in total donations from the company between groundbreaking and the first 15 years of its operation in return for Clean Energy’s 100 percent property tax abatement during that time. Considering village school district voters just earlier this month approved tax levies to provide about $1.5 million annually to the district, the generous contribution to the schools should provide more long-term security for it. Too, the village itself will benefit from income taxes off the plant’s estimated $3.4 million payroll.
Construction jobs
The entire Mahoning Valley also will profit through creation of about 500 construction jobs during the estimated 32-month timeline to build it. Those jobs, plus spinoff jobs and the 30 permanent jobs at the plant all work to further solidify and diversify the Valley’s economic base.
But the benefits also extend far beyond the geographical boundaries of Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties. The clean electrical energy produced with natural gas at the plant will be sufficient to power 500,000 households over a wide territory. It also will make a dent in this nation’s ongoing effort to replace and shut down dirty energy production at coal-fired and sooty pollution-producing plants.
None of these assets, however, would even have come close to reality were it not for the concerted cooperation and mature behavior of all key players. One prime example was a heated zoning controversy, which came to an amicable settlement among residents, village leaders and company officials when Clean Energy last year agreed to relocate the plant from a residential zone to an industrial zone on Henn Parkway. In addition, village, county and state officials acted likewise, illustrating again the power of public-private partnerships for jump-starting local economies.
Commissioners’ move
Now with the project within reach, it is incumbnet upon all players to continue that cooperative responsible behavior by ensuring all i’s are properly dotted and all t’s are meticulously crossed. Toward that end, Trumbull County commissioners should act with aplomb Wednesday to sign off on the deal.
If all goes well, construction would begin this fall and extend toward a projected completion in late 2018. As the bulldozers and earth movers prepare to take their places in the Lordstown Industrial Park, let this huge success serve as a model of cooperative economic development in our Valley for years to come.