The $9.1 million investment will include renovations to Speedway’s headquarters in Enon, as well as the purchase of a building at the NextEdge Applied Research and Technology Park on East National Road in Clark County. That building was formerly occupied by Qbase, a Beavercreek data analytics company which moved there in 2008 but has since left.
The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved a 60 percent, 10-year tax credit as part of the agreement. In return, Speedway pledged to create $14 million in new payroll and maintain operations in Clark County for at least 13 years. Speedway will also retain $39 million in existing payroll from current jobs.
The city of Springfield will also propose a five-year employment incentive grant on the net new income taxes generated as a result of the project, said Tom Franzen, director of economic development for the city. The proposal, valued at roughly $367,000, will be discussed by city officials at their Aug. 5 meeting. The incentives are similar to what the city has offered other companies who have proposed to create a large number of jobs, Franzen said.
Speedway’s announcement Monday follows its recent $2.8 billion acquisition of Hess Retail Holdings, one of the largest convenience store chains on the East Coast. The new jobs will have an average salary of about $40,000 a year, local officials said. The jobs will include office support and other professional positions, according to the company.
Company officials said the expansion is partly due to the Hess acquisition. Speedway already employs about 800 workers at its Enon headquarters, but that site is filled to capacity.
“Having facilities in Enon and now in Springfield keeps our operations close together in a central location that is good for attracting talent,” said Tony Kenney, Speedway president. “The community’s affordability, quality of life, great schools and health care system make it an ideal location for our future growth and, more importantly, for our employees who will be living and working here.”
Speedway’s jobs announcement is the largest since Thirty-One Gifts pledged to create hundreds of jobs at its facility on Titus Road three years ago, according to information from the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.
“We are excited that Speedway, the largest company in the Springfield area, is making the choice to grow their headquarters presence here in Springfield,” said Mike McDorman, president of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.
In May, Speedway purchased Hess Retail Holdings for about $2.8 billion, nearly doubling its size and expanding its footprint along the East Coast. The acquisition will make Speedway the largest company-owned convenience store chain in the U.S. based on revenue and the second-largest based on the number of stores.
Hess operated corporate locations in New Jersey and North Carolina, according to state documents, and Clark County was competing with both sites for the additional jobs and investment.
Speedway has been aggressive in the past five years in renovating its existing stations, and the size of the Hess acquisition was significant, said Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy, which tracks gas prices in the U.S. and Canada.
“It wouldn’t be too much of a surprise that in an acquisition the size of the Hess acquisition that Speedway would look to shift jobs or create new programs to run the acquisition more efficiently,” DeHaan said.
Local officials have said Speedway is one of the region’s largest employers, and has donated millions to local projects in recent years.
“Speedway is a great corporate citizen in the Clark County community,” said Rick Lohnes, Clark County commissioner. “We are thrilled our county will continue to benefit from their growth and success.”
The company is one of Clark County’s most generous corporate citizens, McDorman said. In recent years, they have donated to projects such as the Springfield Regional Medical Center and the scoreboard for the Champion City Kings, a local minor league baseball team.
Monday’s announcement is important to the region, and it could also benefit other local firms that provide services to Speedway, he said.
“We’re blessed with many companies throughout this region that are here and are doing well and they are growing,” McDorman said. “This indicates further what is going on in our region and in our community.”
The new professional positions that will be created will help diversity Springfield’s economy, Franzen said. In the past, the area has relied heavily on the manufacturing and trucking industries, meaning the region was hit harder when those industries suffered downturns.
“It’s beneficial on a whole host of fronts,” Franzen said. “It helps us diversify our employment base. We’ve had a very strong representation from manufacturing and distribution-type industries, and the city along with the chamber have been trying to attract and help grow the existing professional service-related jobs.”
It will also ideally help attract other potential tenants to NextEdge, an industrial park where the city and county have struggled to find tenants. Speedway’s decision to move into that site will ideally encourage other companies, Franzen said.
“We think that with Speedway’s announcement and their location at NextEdge, that will obviously raise the profile there,” Franzen said.
The building Speedway will occupy at NextEdge will be used for a variety of services, including accounting, information technology, customer service, merchandising and other jobs, said Stefanie Griffith, a spokeswoman for Speedway.
Hiring will likely begin once the Hess deal is finalized this fall, Griffith said.
By the numbers:
350 — New Jobs Speedway plans to create
$9.1 million — Planned Speedway investment
800 — Approximate number of current local Speedway employees
$2.8 billion — Cost of recent deal to acquire Hess Retail
The Springfield News-Sun has covered recent events at Speedway in detail and will continue to offer unmatched coverage as the region tries to attreact and retain jobs. The paper recently provided readers with stories about Speedway’s acquisition of Hess Retail Holdings. It also provided additional coverage this past weekend on what that deal means for the company and why it’s important. The paper will continue to track developments as Speedway tries to bring new jobs to the area.
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