By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
ASHTABULA — The Ashtabula City Port Authority and the new Route 11 industrial park are moving ahead with their first building project, says Alicia McFarland, the Port Authority’s economic development director.
McFarland is working with the industrial park’s first tenant, Jim Godez of Ashtabula, she said. Construction should be completed by November 2010. Godez bought two lots earlier this year on the condition he would get a 75 percent tax abatement for 10 years.
At the time he bought the property, he owned National Welders Supply Co. in the Ashtabula Harbor and on Route 20. Since then, he has sold the business to Valley National Gas. He plans to consolidate the two sites at the industrial park and lease a building to the new owner.
The Ashtabula Area City School Board pulled the plug on the Port Authority’s first attempt to fill its industrial park by offering a 50 percent tax abatement to Godez. Godez had said up front he was interested only in a 75 percent tax abatement for 10 years. When he heard the school board voted down his request 4-1, he wanted to cancel the sales contract and started looking for a new location, Port Authority Chairman Ron Kister said.
School board President Janine Trebuchon-Wertz cast the only yes vote.
“I believe it would have benefited the school board,” she said.
Since that time, the Port Authority agreed to pay Godez the additional 25 percent that the school board would not waive. The amount is projected to be about $1,300 a year, Kister said.
