A local agriculture-based business will double its workforce after moving its headquarters from Columbus to Seymour, a company official said.
Premier Companies, which merged with Jackson Jennings Co-Op in August, announced plans Monday to build a 15,000-square foot corporate office building in the 1000 block of West Second Street in Seymour.
The building will either be behind or to the west of the new Blue and Co. accounting office building currently under construction beside the Jackson County Health Department.
Seymour City Council approved a request Monday from Premier for a 10-year-tax abatement on the $2 million project.
Premier Ag Co-Op already operates out of a building in Seymour at 103 Community Drive. That office will be put on the market in the spring, said Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.
Construction on the new office building is expected to get underway in November and be completed in July 2017.
The new building will house the company’s existing 18 employees from the Seymour and Columbus offices and will allow Premier to hire 18 new employees, said Harold Cooper, chief operating officer. Salaries for those 36 jobs total more than $2.5 million, Plump said.
After the merger, Premier Ag now serves customers from Indianapolis to Cincinnati to Louisville.
“We basically took the two halves of southeast Indiana and made it into one,” Cooper said of the company’s reach.
The decision to move headquarters to Seymour was based on the need for a more centralized location and the fact Premier has more branches in Jackson County than any other county in its territory.
Premier operates fuel stations in Brownstown, Crothersville and Seymour; a farm and pet store in Seymour and grain elevators in Cortland and Brownstown.
The company also had land available in Seymour to expand, officials said.
Premier recently sold two of its buildings at 785 S. Marr Road in Columbus to Bartholomew County commissioners for a potential location for the Purdue Extension of Bartholomew County and possibly the Bartholomew County Soil and Water Conservation District.
