Wednesday, February 15, 2017
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners approved a 60 percent, 10-year real-estate tax abatement for Trumbull Manufacturing Inc., as that company plans to spend $1.6 million to prepare an empty building at 3850 Henricks Road in Austintown to accommodate a new plant.
When the Austintown trustees approved the abatement last month, Julian Lehman, company treasurer, said the abatement will allow the company to add at least five full-time jobs and retain 22 jobs.
Trumbull Manufacturing is a Warren company that has been in the area for more than 35 years. It is an offshoot of Trumbull Industries, which was founded in 1922.
The company makes municipal products, including water-meter covers and parts for fire hydrants.
The company is in the process of buying the single-story, 35,000-square-foot Austintown building and the six acres it sits on.
Over the 10-year life of the abatement, the company will pay almost $55,000 in real-estate taxes; but the schools and local governments will collectively forgo about $82,000 in taxes, said Sarah V. Lown, public finance manager at the Western Reserve Port Authority.
“This is a vacant building, which is bringing in no taxes today,” Lown said.
“This [investment in Austintown] is especially good news because, prior to now, they were importing all of their parts and goods from China, and now they’re going to manufacture them here,” Lown told the commissioners Tuesday.
“It’s great to see development coming to our county. The abatement’s a nice tool. It does make businesses want to locate here. It’s working fine,” said Commissioner Anthony Traficanti.
In addition to spending $1.6 million on construction, the company will buy $400,000 in equipment for the new building and move $3.4 million in inventory from other places, Lehman said.
In other action, the commissioners appointed Brian Tolnar, Katie Seminara-DeToro and Paul Hagman to two-year terms on the county Convention and Visitors Bureau Board.
The commissioners also voted to advertise for bids for the first phase of the Boardman wastewater treatment plant upgrade, which will prepare that plant to accept new sewage when the New Middletown treatment plant closes.