Groton (a small town outside Ithaca) has never really recovered from the Smith-Corona closing. Hope this can help revitalize the place some.
Fire truck body company sends proposal to IDA
Saulsbury-run firm expects to bring 100 jobs to Groton
By Tim Ashmore and Timothy Cama
Journal Staff
ITHACA — The Board of Directors of the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency was busy Friday, accepting two more project proposals and spending an hour discussing the city density policy.
The IDA also spent time discussing details of a $5 million tax-exempt bond for Cayuga Medical Center.
The agency heard a proposal from Plastisol, a company whose president says it could bring 100 full-time jobs to the Village of Groton once it gets off the ground.
Plastisol's plant will construct fire truck bodies out of a composite resin and fiberglass material, then sell the bodies to manufacturers who will construct the full trucks, according to company president Allen Saulsbury.
Saulsbury and his family ran a fire truck manufacturing company in Preble for generations before the company was sold to a conglomerate in the late 1990s, then closed shortly thereafter. Plastisol, however, will only assemble fire truck bodies, Saulsbury said, and it won't be nearly as large an operation as the original Saulsbury company was.
Plastisol is a Netherlands-based company, but Saulsbury's company will be a limited liability corporation, independent from Plastisol in the Netherlands. The Groton company will use material from the Netherlands until it can produce its own materials.
The 20,000-square-foot plant will have 35 employees at first, and Saulsbury agreed to commit to 100 percent living-wage jobs.
“This is the biggest thing in Groton since Smith-Corona moved out,” said Gary Watrous, chairman of the Groton IDA.
Smith-Corona closed its Groton facility in 1983, taking 1,500 jobs out of the village, and 5,000 jobs out of Tompkins County, and the village still hasn't recovered, Watrous said. Plastisol won't replace Smith-Corona, Watrous explained, but it will definitely help the village.
Plastisol will buy its land from the Groton IDA, and it will purchase enough land to expand to a 100,000-square-foot plant in the future.
There is a good chance that suppliers and other aligned companies will move to the Village of Groton once the Plastisol plant is built, explained Saulsbury, such as production or painting companies, an idea that has Groton officials and the county IDA alike excited.
If Plastisol receives IDA approval, the company will receive a property tax abatement along with sales tax breaks on timber and furniture and a partial mortgage recording tax break. The next step in their application is a public hearing, then the IDA will make a final decision on the tax abatement at its September meeting.
Tompkins County Area Development president Michael Stamm said there is a very good chance that Plastisol's application will be approved. TCAD coordinates the Tompkins County IDA.
Other proposals
In other action, Ithacare submitted its application for a 24,000-square-foot addition to Longview (see story, Page 1B). The application is for both an abatement and a tax-exempt bond for the expansion, said Macera. This means that not only will Ithacare need a public hearing, but the county Legislature must also approve their project, said Stamm.
Unlike the approval process for the Longview project, Plastisol will not need county approval before it can move forward, and the entire approval process could take as little as 30 days, Stamm said.
During the first hour of the meeting, the board examined their city density relationship with the City of Ithaca that was developed years ago.
The IDA has helped the city with commercial projects such as Seneca Place and Inlet Island Health, and will likely help with Cayuga Green II. But several months ago, the city and IDA made the decision to evaluate their policy to determine how and if it should change, Stamm said.
The city has worked with the IDA on developing a point system that would value certain aspects of housing such as low-income or “green” building. The goal is to make sure rehabilitation projects, housing and small projects, among other classes of development, are eligible for abatement under the density project. The former city density project made it hard for those developments to get abatements.
The IDA is also looking at changes that keep its goals for the county in mind.
“The IDA, because it is a county-wide organization, is considering including in project evaluations the impact a city project might have on a school district or another business in the county,” Stamm said.
The city and the IDA also discussed working in tandem when businesses begin their application process. Stamm said when businesses apply, they explain their plan to the city and are then forced to start over again with TCAD.
tashmore@ithacajournal.com
Originally published August 4, 2007