City approves Packerware tax abatement

It’s a deal.

City commissioners on Tuesday night agreed to grant a 90 percent tax abatement – the largest in the city’s history – to entice a $118 million expansion at Packerware Corp. that could add 154 jobs by 2010.

“This project is important to Massachusetts Street. It is important to the other commercial districts in town,” City Commissioner Mike Amyx said. “It makes good sense to Lawrence. I think this project will help us all.”

Officials with Packerware’s parent company, Berry Plastics, said hiring of 43 employees would begin no later than the third quarter of this year, and that production of a new line of plastic cups would begin by the end of the year at its plant in northern Lawrence.

Commissioners approved the deal on a 4-1 vote after Berry officials submitted a proposal to pay the Lawrence school district $12,000 per year for the next 10 years as a way to compensate for a portion of the taxes the district would give up as part of the abatement.

“We wanted to make sure everyone in the community, including us, feel good about the benefit of this project to the school district,” said Robert Weilminster, vice president of corporate development for Berry Plastics.

The company made the offer after a study ordered by the city showed the school district would benefit far less from the 10-year abatement than the city and county would.

City commissioners also were urged to approve the abatement by area economic development officials. Tim Cowden, senior vice president of business development for the Kansas City Area Development Council, said the $118 million project represented the largest investment of any of the approximately 50 companies he had worked with in the past five years. His company helps companies in an 18-county region.

“When you consider that there are fewer and fewer manufacturing projects available in the U.S. today, this really is an extraordinary project,” Cowden said.

City Commissioner Mike Rundle cast the lone vote against the abatement. He said he was disappointed that 72 of the jobs would have an average wage of $10.50 per hour, which is just slightly above the $10.06 per hour living wage that companies receiving abatements are mandated to pay.

Rundle said he also wasn’t convinced that the company, which currently employs 450 people in Lawrence, would choose to locate the project elsewhere if it didn’t receive the abatement.

“I think the firm has a substantial investment here that they’re not going to walk away from,” Rundle said. “My position on abatements has been consistent. They should be rare and fair.”

Berry officials had said they were considering two other location for the expansion, although they declined to name the communities. They said both communities had lower tax rates than Lawrence, but they wanted to be in Lawrence because of Packerware’s work force.

The expansion project has three phases. The first phase will add 43 employees and $36.5 million in equipment and buildings, while the second would add 35 employees and $34 million in investments and the third phase would add 76 new employees and $72 million in investments. The second and third phases are contingent upon the company’s new line of drink cups meeting sales projections.

“But I can tell you that our customers really seem to like the product,” Weilminster said.

The new plastic cup line uses a new technology that allows the cups to be made at a lower cost and more easily compete with disposable cups.

Commissioners must conduct one more public hearing on the project – likely at their Feb. 7 meeting – to meet some legal requirements of the abatement.

Firm to guide search for planning director

City commissioners Tuesday night agreed to bring in a national consulting firm to help with their search for a new planning director.

Commissioners unanimously agreed to hire Norcross, Ga.-based Slavin Management Consultants to assist in the process to find a replacement for Linda Finger, who resigned as Lawrence-Douglas County planning director late last year. The contract is for $13,640 plus expenses.

Slavin has helped hire planning directors in Austin, Texas, and Santa Monica, Calif., and recently helped Topeka hire its first city manager. City Manager Mike Wildgen has said he would like to have a new planning director hired this spring. Douglas County commissioners will be asked to pay for 50 percent of the search process.

New sewer technology to be considered

City commissioners want to study a more nature-based way to treat the city’s sewage, but they don’t want to delay the site-selection process for a new $75 million sewer plant along the Wakarusa River.

Commissioners agreed that the city’s Public Advisory Committee should continue to study the idea of eco machines, which employ a treatment process that uses fewer chemicals than traditional sewer plants. But commissioners said the committee should continue to investigate sites for a traditional sewer plant.

City commissioners will make the ultimate decision on which type of technology to use. A recommendation on a plant site should be complete by June.

Three locations added to historic register

Commissioners gave preliminary approval to place Hobbs Park and two city fire stations on the Lawrence Register of Historic Places.

In addition to the park, 702 E. 11th St., commissioners agreed to add the fire stations at 1839 Mass. and 2819 Stone Barn Terrace to the list.

The designations, which will become official after ordinances are passed in the coming weeks, will protect the historical architecture of the buildings and require future improvements in the area to go through a review process by the city’s Historic Resources Commission.

Residential project receives delayed OK

Commissioners agreed to allow a new residential project near the southeast corner of Kansas Highway 10 and O’Connell Road to move forward.

Commissioners agreed to annex and rezone land that will allow 35 acres of duplex use and 37 acres of single-family use for the property. The project had been put on hold until city commissioners could approve a Southeast Area Plan, but commissioners have not been able to reach a consensus with county commissioners on that plan.

City commissioners on a 4-1 vote agreed to allow the project to move forward because it had been delayed for 18 months, and there was general agreement between city and county commissioners that the area is suited for residential development.