© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

With a tax incentive, a manufacturer will relocate to Springfield

Springfield City Hall at night
Paul Tuthill
/
WAMC
The City Council in Springfield, MA approved a five-year tax increment finance agreement with Duc-Pac to relocate to the city from East Longmeadow, MA.

Duc-Pac will move 43 jobs to the city

Aided by a tax break, a manufacturing company is relocating to Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Springfield City Council unanimously approved a five-year roughly $95,000 tax abatement agreement with Duc-Pac Corp. The maker of prefabricated steel ducts plans to move its headquarters and all 43 jobs from East Longmeadow to a site in the city on Page Blvd.

Ward 8 City Councilor Orlando Ramos urged his colleagues to support the tax increment financing (TIF) agreement as submitted by the city administration.

“It’s a welcome addition to the East Springfield neighborhood,” Ramos said. “The prospect of new jobs coming into the city of Springfield is always exciting and we welcome them to the neighborhood.”

The company met with the East Springfield Neighborhood Council and received support for its plans.

Last December, the company purchased the vacant commercial building at 1125 Page Blvd for $3.7 million and plans to spend $1.5 million on renovations and new equipment, according to the city’s economic development office.

At a meeting of the City Council’s Economic Development Committee last August, Greg Merchant, president of Duc-Pac, said the company plans to relocate operations to Springfield in May 2022.

“In recent years, it just became obvious that for us to keep up with the growth of our distributors we were going to need new space,” Merchant said. “This building on Page Blvd. is just the right size for us. It is going to leave a little extra room for growth and I think we are going to grow into it pretty swiftly once we get set up there.”

The city collects about $111,000 in taxes on the property currently, but based on the sales price and the planned improvements the tax bill would shoot up to almost $166,000 in the first year of the TIF and then increase incrementally in the next five years until reaching full valuation, according to a summary presented to the Council by the city’s Office of Planning and Economic Development.

The TIF agreement does not require Duc-Pac to create any new jobs, said Brian Connors, the city’s deputy director of economic development.

“The jobs are all being moved from East Longmeadow,” Connors said. “The company already employs a significant amount – I believe it’s more than half – of Springfield residents and in the TIF for any new jobs created they need to make best efforts to hire not only Springfield residents but target residents within the East Springfield neighborhood.”

In 2018, the City Council passed an ordinance making fair labor standards and hiring goals part of future TIF agreements. Companies that don’t comply risk having to return the tax incentives.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.