Tipton — The Tipton County Council will vote tonight on a $13 million incentive that officials say will help sell the abandoned 90,000-square-foot factory on U.S. 31 to a solar panel manufacturer.
The money would create a bond the county would give to the trust of contractors that owns the empty Getrag plant on the northeast corner of U.S. 31 and Ind. 28. The bond would help the trust lower the cost of the plant without losing any money.
Council President Brad Nichols said tonight’s vote would be the council’s final business with the incentive. The council unanimously approved the first reading of the ordinance for the incentive at its April meeting.
The council will first have a public hearing at 7 p.m. tonight in the General Tipton meeting room on the second floor of the Tipton County Courthouse.
Nichols said he wanted to hold off on the final vote for the $13 million bond until tonight’s meeting so residents had a month to give their feedback. He had not received any feedback as of Monday, he said.
The county plans to use a Tax Increment Financing district to pay for the bond.
TIFs are areas local governments use to pull property taxes from to fund-specific projects, such as selling the Getrag site. The theory is that public projects and buildings go up, property values increase causing tax revenues also to increase. The extra money is then used to pay off the debts.
The $13 million would be the second incentive the county approved for the site.
The council approved at its April meeting a $330,000 tax abatement for the trust that owns the plant. The abatement will cut in half what the trust owes the IRS for 2010. If “Apex,” the code name for the interested business, bought the factory, it would receive the abatement for 10 years.
The plant has stood empty since 2008.
Getrag and Chrysler, which partnered on the would-be transmission plant, both filed for bankruptcy that year. The plant was about 85 percent complete and the companies had invested $530 million into it.
After the companies didn’t pay contractors for the work they completed, a federal court turned over ownership to the trust.
If “Apex” buys the plant, it plans to invest another $450 million into the factory and created 850 jobs, an attorney for Barnes & Thornburg LLP said at the April council meeting.
• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.
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