Salem City Council To Consider Tropical Products Tax Break

Salem MA

02 August, 2021

3:23 PM

Description

SALEM, MA —Salem City Councilors on Wednesday will debate a potential five-year tax break for Tropical Products as the company relocates and expands to a 100,000-square-foot-facility on Highland Avenue. The tax increment finance resolution would provide real estate tax relief for the company in exchange of relocating to the new facilities and adding 123 full-time jobs over the next five years, with Salem residents to receive priority hiring. A special city council meeting has been called for 6 p.m. Wednesday night that will also include an order to discuss city clerk and assistant city clerk compensation, an election order for the city preliminary election in September, a committee report for B&S Road Race, and the second passage of the Demolition Delay Ordinance. The Tropical Products ordinance said the $19 million project includes $3 million to purchase the land, $13 million in construction costs, $1.,755 million in soft costs and $1.25 million in machinery and equipment. The tax breaks, which began at 100 percent and reduce to 20 percent in the fifth year, are contingent on the company's plans to retain 10 full-time positions and create 123 new, permanent, full-time jobs within the five years. The property valuation is estimated at $2,767,000. The ordinance also calls for the city to request Tropical Products target new hires that traditionally have difficulty finding employment, including but not limited to veterans, disabled people, the homeless and formerly incarcerated people. The city will also stipulate that the new building's cafeteria space be available for community meetings and that Tropical Products install rooftop solar panels to meet or exceed their energy footprint at the site. The meeting will be held virtually on Zoom and can be found here. More login information can be found here. Did you find this article useful? Invite a friend to subscribe to Patch. (Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)