Posted: 5:07 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014

LOCAL JOBS

City offers deal to lure jobs to Middletown

By  http://www.journal-news.com/staff/ed-richter/" rel="nofollow - Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — 

    About 95 new jobs could be created in Middletown during the next three years as parts of a company’s proposed $13 million expansion.

    Denise Hamet, Middletown’s economic development director, recommended Tuesday to Middletown City Council that Valicor be granted a city incentive package valued at $1.45 million.

    Valicor, formerly United Waste Water Solutions, provides fluid purification and resource management technologies and services, according to its website.

    The company, which is employee owned, currently has 77 people working at two sites in Middletown. Valicor also has two other sites in the Greater Cincinnati area. Hamet said the company wants to consolidate its local operations and relocate jobs from Franklin and Sharonville into one location in a new facility. She said the company is also looking at a site in Kentucky.

    “We have been working with Valicor and their site selector to create an incentive strategy that keeps the jobs in Middletown, creates new construction, enables economies of scale for more efficient operation, and provides space to facilitate future growth,” Hamet told council.    “Valicor is also coordinating with the state of Ohio to finalize their incentive package. If they are able to obtain their incentives from us and the state, they will build a new facility here.”

Hamet said the proposed 10-year, $1.4 million city incentive package would include a 50 percent enterprise zone tax abatement for 10 years and a job creation incentive grant only on new positions for 10 years that would not apply to existing jobs.

    She said the project would keep 77 jobs in Middletown, but they would be relocated to a new 125,000-square-foot building at a site with room for future growth.

    The company would bring 95 jobs to Middletown during the first three years of operation of the new building, at an average annual wage of more than $60,000.

    She said Valicor has been named a top workplace in the Cincinnati area for the past five years. The company has a number of locations in Ohio as well as locations in the U.S. in the Midwest, south and southwest. It also has operations in Mexico. Hamet said Valicor serves a number of sectors that include the automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, food service, pulp and paper and chemical industries.

    Valicor has almost doubled in employment since 2010, growing from 169 in 2010 to 311 in 2014. The company supports several processes, including renewable, separation technologies, and environmental services. The latter would be the bulk of the new facility.

    Dave Brown, Valicor’s vice president, told council the company has had a great relationship with the city since they came in 1998. He said the company is 100-percent employee-owned.

    “We’re an aggressive company and we put all of our profits back into the business,” he said.

    The current company was formed from several companies in 2004 and had $27 million in revenue then, he said. Brown said the company expects to earn $125 million in revenue for 2014.

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