Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes the Director of Development to amend the City's Enterprise Zone Agreement (EZA) with Safety Today, Inc. ("Safety Today") and Meritex Columbus, LLC ("Meritex"). The EZA was authorized by City Council in 2001 and was signed in 2002 by the anchor tenant, Safety Today, and the original owner of the real property, Spiegel Drive LLC. In October of 2004, Spiegel Drive LLC sold the real property to Meritex and the latter replaced Spiegel Drive LLC as a party to the EZA. The EZA granted a tax abatement of 60%/7-yrs (2002-2008) on real and personal property and called for the investment of $4.8 million to construct a new facility and $1.55 million to acquire new personal property. As of December 2004, the investment in real and personal property was somewhat short of the goal. Safety Today agreed to retain 43 existing jobs and to create 23 new jobs and the property owner agreed to lease the speculative space in the facility to a tenant that would create 25 new jobs. Altogether, the project was supposed to create 48 new jobs by April 2004, but as of December 2004 zero (0) new jobs had been created and Safety Today had retained 37 jobs. By April 2005, Meritex had secured a tenant that had created 4 jobs as of July 2005 and is expected to create approximately 15 new jobs in total. The Columbus Tax Incentive Review Council (the "TIRC") recommended on August 16, 2005, to amend the EZA to reduce the job creation requirement to a total of 15 jobs and to reduce the length of the tax abatement by one (1) year.
FISCAL IMPACT: No funding is required for this legislation.
Title
To authorize the Director of Development amend the Enterprise Zone Agreement with Safety Today, Inc. and Meritex Columbus, LLC by reducing the job creation to fifteen (15) jobs and reducing the length of the tax abatement by one (1) year. and to declare an emergency.
Body
WHEREAS, the Columbus City Council approved an ...
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