UPDATE: City votes to forgive $3.6M Kettering Health Network loan for cancer center

Credit: Dana Zechar

Credit: Dana Zechar

UPDATE: Kettering City Council voted Tuesday night to approve a resolution for supplemental appropriations to forgive the Kettering Health Network loan.

KETTERING — The city is set to forgive its largest cash financial incentive ever, a $3.6 million loan to Kettering Health Network.

The city’s largest employer has fulfilled the requirements of a deal it signed five years ago for the Kettering Cancer Center and the five-story facility had a payroll of about $17.5 million last year, a city official said.

KHN said Monday the cancer center has 213 employees - 130 more than the new jobs estimated in 2016. It is part the network’s operations that employ more than 3,500 in Kettering, according to the city.

“Going into this we were certainly hopeful that (KHN) would be successful and meet all of the conditions of forgiveness,” Kettering Economic Development Manager Gregg Gorsuch said of the deal for the $50 million site.

“Because that means the facility was constructed, was filled up with employees and they’ve well-exceed the minimum annual payroll requirements of that facility,” he added. “So in the long term, this is going to be a huge benefit to the city of Kettering.”

Kettering City Council will be asked tonight to approve $3.6 million in supplemental appropriations for economic development operating expenses, records show.

A resolution on the issue is going before council because KHN has met the conditions to have the loan forgiven, Gorsuch said.

“We’ve already paid the loan money out in the last few years,” he added. “So this is just a…bookkeeping, non-cash transaction. It’s not costing anything more.”

Among the requirements met by KHN for the Southern Boulevard facility, Gorsuch said:

• Obtain a signed occupancy permit.

• Construct a building that is at least 120,000 square feet.

• Three consecutive years with at least $7 million in annual payroll.

Kettering Cancer Center was “well over” that payroll threshold in 2017, Gorsuch said. The cancer center’s incentive package topped one given to Community Tissue Services when it moved to Miami Valley Research Park, according to the city.

That package was capped at $1 million.

In July, the city also forgave a loan to Alternate Solutions Health Network as part of agreement that involved more than 300 new jobs at Kettering Business Park.

The amount of loan forgiveness this past summer in that deal was $730,481, city records show.

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