FRANKLIN — Battery maker Energizer Manufacturing Inc. is seeking tax breaks from the city of Franklin in return for opening a $62.7 million packaging and distribution center that it says will employ 440 people by 2022.
The subsidiary of St. Louis-based Energizer Holdings Inc. hopes to open the facility in 933,000-square-foot shell building on a 62-acre site in Franklin Tech Park, just east of Interstate 65 and south of State Road 44. Fishers-based Sunbeam Development Corp. recently finished construction of the building on a speculative basis.
Franklin’s Economic Development Commission presented Energizer’s plan at a Tuesday meeting and recommended the city council approve the tax breaks at Monday’s meeting.
Energizer plans to spend $4.1 million on real estate and $58.6 million to equip the building, according to city documents.
The company is seeking a 10-year property tax abatement that will save it $560,574 and a 10-year personal property tax abatement that will save it $3.47 million. The company will still pay an estimated $673,000 in real property taxes and $2.7 million in personal property taxes over the 10-year abatement period.
Energizer estimated that 27 managerial workers would be hired at the facility at an average hourly wage of $40.80, or $84,864 annually based on a 40-hour work week. Another 413 operators, fabricators and laborers would be hired at an average hourly wage of $16.84, or $35,027 per year.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s Republic.
