SIDNEY — The Shelby County commissioners approved the enterprise zone agreement that will grant SEMCORP Manufacturing USA LLC a tax exemption of 75% for 15 years at a commissioner meeting on April 28.
The agreement has already been approved by Sidney City Schools, Upper Valley Career Center and the Sidney City Council. The estimated tax abatement for the company over 15 years is $31,633,875, according to a previous Sidney Daily News article.
SEMCORP, a company that produces lithium-ion separator film and related products, is in the process of deciding to build a new facility in either Sidney or Texas, and the decision is expected to come soon. If the company decides to build in Sidney, another step that would need to be taken by the city is upgrading and improving secondary roads that would be used to get to the facility, according to Commissioner Julie Ehemann.
Ehemann and Commissioner Tony Bornhorst provided statements after the meeting in an email about the reasons why manufacturing businesses like SEMCORP are taking interest in residing in Shelby County.
“It is apparent that Shelby County was chosen as a potential site in part due to the partnerships we have created between the city, county, SSEP (Sidney-Shelby Economic Partnership), and JobsOhio,” Ehemann said.
Bornhorst said that “Shelby County has the largest manufacturing jobs per capita in the state of Ohio,” and this is due to multiple reasons that would be of interest for new businesses to locate to the county.
“Shelby County’s location, by rail and highway, is part of the equation, our dedicated workers and work ethic another part, and now Workforce Partnership develops the next generation of employees for the manufacturing community,” Bornhorst said. “Those three plus our tremendous entrepreneurship of manufacturing entities within Shelby County will continue the tradition of Shelby County being a leader within the state of Ohio.”
Also in attendance at the meeting were Angela Hamberg, the executive director of the Regional Planning Commission (RPC), Shannon Joyce Neal of the Dayton Development Coalition (DDC), a JobsOhio partner, and Mike Butler, a consultant for SEMCORP. Hamberg presented the details of the enterprise zone application and Butler provided background on the company’s history to those present. Bornhorst was not present due to a meeting in Columbus.
