Companies expanding Kendallville operations
Companies expanding Kendallville operations
Posted: Monday, March 24, 2014 11:00 pm | Updated: 5:36 am, Tue Mar 25, 2014.
By Dennis Nartker
dnartker@kpcmedia.com
KENDALLVILLE — Two companies Monday announced expansions at their Kendallville operations, creating a total of 24 new jobs.
“Business is picking up,” Mayor Suzanne Handshoe told members of the Kendallville Economic Development Advisory Committee. “We’re headed in the right direction.”
John Admire, director of operations for Ashley Industrial Molding Inc., told committee members his company will expand its building at 100 S. Progress Drive to handle a mold-lifting crane and add a paint line. The expansion will add 15 new jobs paying about $13.30 an hour to the plant, which has 25 employees.
The expansion is scheduled to begin in April.
The company manufactures composite panels for the agricultural and construction industry, said Admire. The company also has military contracts. The Kendallville plant makes impact-resistant rear panels for John Deere combines.
“We focus on being a good corporate citizen and in building relationships with customers, employees and communities,” Admire said in the company’s tax abatement application.
Committee members voted to recommend that the Kendallville City Council grant Ashley Industrial Molding 10 years of phased-in taxes on $570,000 of real property (building expansion) and a 10-year phased-in tax abatement on $1.53 million in personal property (new equipment).
The committee also voted to recommend the council grant The Boler Co./Hendrickson Truck Suspension 10 years of phased-in taxes on $1,824,685 of personal property. In a letter to the mayor included in the abatement application, William S. Faulkner with DuCharme, McMillen & Associates Inc., representing The Boler Co./Hendrickson Truck Suspension, said the company plans to expand production of trifunctional bushings at its Kendallville plant at 220 S. Progress Drive West in the East Industrial Park. The company also has a facility at 101 S. Progress Drive West.
The project will create nine new jobs at the operations, which have 114 employees, the application said.
Company officials agreed to return 10 percent of the tax savings to the city for economic development.
“Hendrickson is a good corporate citizen, and these are good-paying jobs,” Handshoe told the committee.
Council is expected to consider all three abatement recommendations at its April 1 meeting.
