Pretzels Inc. is a step closer to getting a tax abatement from the City of Plymouth. The Common Council Monday passed a resolution Monday to place the planned facility within an Economic Revitalization Area. The snack producer plans to move into the Marshall County Shell Building near Pioneer Drive and U.S. 30.
Pretzels Inc. co-owner Steve Huggins told council members that Pretzels Inc. is a 37-year-old business owned by two families, with the company’s headquarters located in Bluffton. “We also had a second plant in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and the reason that we’re here tonight is because that plant, unfortunately, had a major fire in early June of this year,” Huggins explained. “That was on a Saturday morning, and Monday morning my partner and I and our families, we decided we’re going to rebuild.”
Complicating matters, according to Huggins, is the fact that the company didn’t own its Pennsylvania plant. “We were leasing the facility out in Pennsylvania, owned the assets of the facility,” he explained. “It would have been nice for us to own that facility. Then we would have had insurance money to pay for the new facility, but we didn’t have that because we leased the facility. So all the new investment that we’re making into this is family money, and when you’re in small business, a lot of that becomes bank debt.”
Pretzels Inc. has already been offered up to $350,000 in conditional tax credits from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Monday’s Plymouth Common Council resolution is the first step in the process of granting a tax abatement from the city, according to Jerry Chavez with the Marshall County EDC. “Basically what that does, it says the property, 8.8 acres that the building sits on, you’re authorizing that for consideration of a tax abatement going forward,” he said. “A lot of legalese that state law prescribes, but this is the first of a two-part process to allow the tax application to go forward.”
Pretzels Inc. is planning to request a $6.3 million real estate abatement and a $12.1 million personal property abatement. According to information provided to council members, the company expects to create about 40 jobs during the two-year abatement period. The company has also announced plans to create a total of up to 65 new jobs by 2020. Plymouth City Attorney Sean Surrisi added that additional abatement requests could be made once the initial two-year period is up.
In addition to the incentives, Huggins says the move to Plymouth will put the facility closer to senior management, as well as the company’s suppliers. The Plymouth facility will help the company keep up with demand for peanut-butter-filled pretzels, its fastest-growing product. Pretzels Inc. hopes to have the new plant in operation by the end of the first quarter of 2017.
