FORT SMITH -- City directors are scheduled today to consider a resolution of intent to issue $38 million in industrial development revenue bonds and participate in a tax back program to persuade an unnamed company to locate in Fort Smith.
Two interim resolutions refer to the company as "Project Platinum." According to a memo from Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman, the company would build a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and employ 150 workers.
No decision has been made on whether the company is moving to Fort Smith. Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Tim Allen said he expected company officials to make a decision around the end of this year or during the first quarter of next year.
Neither City Administrator Carl Geffken nor Allen would reveal the name of the company.
"It's still all under wraps, and I have signed a confidentiality agreement," Geffken said. Allen said he also signed such a nondisclosure agreement.
Geffken said the company's identity will be revealed just before today's meeting because the company has to be identified on the resolutions the city directors will vote on.
The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. today at the River Park Events Building on Riverfront Drive.
Allen said Fort Smith was competing with other cities around the country to be the location for the company's manufacturing plant. The tax back program and the industrial development revenue bonds are incentives to entice the company to build in Fort Smith.
He said the Arkansas Economic Development Commission also is offering an incentive package, but commission communications director Brandi Hinkle said Friday that the commission would not comment on whether it had offered such a package.
Allen said a decision by the company to move to Fort Smith would be "fantastic," adding that Fort Smith has experienced success in adding businesses and jobs over the past five years.
Allen, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and others attended an announcement by Pradco on Friday during which it said it was adding 60 jobs to its fishing lure manufacturing operation in Fort Smith.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Fort Smith area had an unemployment rate of 4 percent as of September, the last month for which it had statistics, down from 4.3 percent in August.
The resolution for the industrial development revenue bond issue said the company has expressed interest in locating in Fort Smith "if permanent financing for the project can be provided through the issuance of revenue bonds under the authority of the [Municipalities and Counties Industrial Development Revenue Bond Law]."
Dingman said in his memo that the company for which the bonds were issued would be responsible for repaying them. The city bears no responsibility to pay them off.
The resolution said that of the estimated $38 million cost of the project, $9.5 million would be spent for real property and $28.5 million would be spent on the facilities. Under the resolution, Fort Smith would agree to allow the company for 10 years to make payments in lieu of property taxes, in an amount equal to 50 percent of the property taxes that would otherwise be due.
Most of the property taxes collected in Sebastian County go to schools.
Under the tax back resolution, the city would agree, under the Consolidated Incentive Act of 2003, to refund state and local taxes paid on purchases of such things as equipment and materials for the construction of new facilities or expansion of existing facilities.
Metro on 11/20/2017