Kettering giving business $200K to add jobs, paying more for arts center

The city of Kettering plans to spend more on job-creation incentives and the renovation of the Rosewood Arts Centre.

Kettering is offering a Miami Valley Research Park medical device business $200,000 to add more than 90 jobs while the projected cost of work to improve Rosewood has increased by $500,000.

Kettering City Council Tuesday night is expected to pass a measure allowing City Manager Mark Schwieterman to sign an agreement with Resonetics that would include the city giving it $200,000 over five years, city records show.

The incentive helps “retain a national leader in the med-tech industry, which is looking to grow its workforce and expand its facility…by doubling the footprint and adding machinery and equipment, further strengthening Kettering’s relationship with this rapidly-growing company,” city Economic Development Manager Amy Schrimpf said in a statement.

The agreement is contingent on Resonetics hitting specific payroll and job creation metrics within five years, she said.

Attempts to reach Resonetics officials Monday were unsuccessful.

The deal would help the business keep and expand its operation on College Drive, where it has about 140 employees in a 20,000 square foot facility on 4.5 acres it moved to in 2013, according to the city.

Earlier this month city council approved the sale of about 2.3 acres to a Beavercreek construction and real estate development company.

The land sale would also help Resonetics to add space and jobs at the 1,250-acre business park, Schwieterman said.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority has approved a 1.493%, eight-year tax credit valued at $570,000 for the expansion, Lisa Colbert of the Ohio Development Services Agency has said.

Resonetics’ expansion is expected add 95 jobs, generating $5 million in new annual payroll and retain $7.3 million in existing payroll, according to the state.

State figures show the new payroll would average about $52,000 a year per job.

The business, based in Nashua, N.H., focuses its technology on components and assemblies for medical device and diagnostics manufacturers, according to its website.

City council is also expected to allow more spending for Rosewood. The cost for the first phase of the renovation has increased to $2.393 million, about $700,000 more than originally approved.

Bids for that phase came in higher than expected and a $200,000 contingency was added, helping push the total cost of the multi-year project to $4.858 million, Assistant City Manager Steve Bergstresser said. It had been about $4.3 million.

“We have sufficient reserves in our capital improvement budget accounts to cover the additional expenditures,” he said.

The contract has not yet been awarded, but work is expected to start by Sept. 1, Bergstresser said.

Phase I’s cost also increased by including work that initially had been planned in the second and third parts of the project, he said.

Those include installing a new fire alarm system and renovation of the main rest rooms, documents state.

Rosewood serves more than 80,000 people annually through a variety of visual and performing arts, according to the city.

It was built as an elementary school in 1965 and closed in 1984 when Kettering City Schools consolidated buildings. No significant structural or interior changes have occurred since 1985, officials have said.

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