RELATED: Emerson opens 'Helix' center on UD campus
“This is a capital project of significant magnitude,” Jerry Brunswick, executive director of the Port Authority said. “We worked with the Dayton Development Coalition and JobsOhio in putting this project together.”
Emerson has some 1,600 employees in Sidney, making heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and climate control equipment and parts about 40 minutes north of Dayton. The company also has a new $35 million research center in Dayton, on the University of Dayton campus.
Many of the company’s employees commute to Emerson in Sidney from the Dayton area, Brent Schroeder, Emerson group president, told this news outlet in a recent interview.
Since the Port Authority is exempt from sales taxes, the financial arrangement would save Emerson sales tax costs on all materials purchased for construction in the project. Meeting materials given to trustees said the company would save an estimated nearly $2.4 million in the arrangement.
Under the agreement, the Port Authority would hold title to each phase of the project. Emerson would purchase the project back from the Port Authority at the end of the initial lease period. The capital lease would have a five-year term.
The project still depends on an array of state and local incentives, Brunswick said.
“This is a significant project for the region,” he said. “A ($73 million) investment is a real signal of a company’s commitment to the region.”
Questions were left with a spokeswoman for Emerson.
The work planned would involve building some 97,000-square-feet of engineering lab space inside an existing facility in the first phase of the expansion, according to Port Authority documents. Offices would be expanded by about 20,000 square feet, also in the first phase.
In the second phase of the project, 172,000 square feet of existing first floor office and other space would be remodeled and rebuilt.
Brunswick said no new jobs are expected in the project.
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