Katy Industries will offer Jefferson City up to 200 local jobs when it moves its subsidiary Continental Commercial Products manufacturing and distribution operations here from Bridgeton later this year.
But Jefferson City has a lot to offer the company as well - so much so that Katy Industries chose to locate here over three other Midwest sites.
"We had a business need to consider other facilities. Jefferson City provided a very good option," said Brian Nichols, Katy Industries' vice president for risk management, human resources and legal affairs. "We were considering facilities when we found out about Jefferson City, and they really jumped through hoops to get everything together."
Why Jefferson City?
Katy Industries approached the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce about the move at the beginning of February, fewer than eight weeks before the decision was made, said Missy Bonnot, the chamber's director of economic development. In an economy where most relocating companies prefer existing buildings, the former RR Donnelley facility gave the chamber great real estate to market.
"The owners of that building were very smart in how they presented the building. A lot of people go in and just strip out a building," Nichols said, noting the necessary electrical and mechanical systems are already in place. "They hadn't taken anything out - if anything, they had slightly updated the infrastructure."
The site's rail access also was essential to CCP's decision to relocate there.
The building's ownership group, 321 Wilson Drive LLC, is also in the warehousing business, and had planned to lease the property as warehouse space to existing Mid-Missouri companies, said General Manager Andy Stuckenschneider.
"But this opportunity came up, they saw 200 manufacturing jobs for our community, they knew what that would do to our economy, and they did a lot of things kind of behind the scenes to facilitate this project," Bonnot said.
One of those actions was to make a $1.7 million incentive payment to Katy Industries, which had paid $1.6 million to terminate its Bridgeton lease early.
The joint effort of several community entities helped sell the Jefferson City site, as well.
"Jefferson City did a really good job of putting a coordinated effort together," Nichols said, noting the local economic development team's initial presentation to Katy Industries gave them everything they needed to work with. "Everybody was there in one room with one presentation to really give us the facts about the area and what they had to offer."
That first presentation included input from the Chamber of Commerce, City of Jefferson, Cole County, Sen. Mike Kehoe and Donald Claycomb, president of Missouri State Technical College, which will offer specialized training to prepare CCP's local workforce.
"That really is our model, to bring all of our partners together," Bonnot said. A similar approach earned the Special Olympics Training for Life campus for Jefferson City in January, although, Bonnot noted, the publicity of that project allowed many more community and business partners to be involved. "We take that for granted, but I think it is kind of unique."
Jefferson City was competing for the project with St. Louis; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Vandalia, Illinois.
"No other areas that we looked at had as good of a coordinated effort," Nichols said. "For the business partners and that group to work so well together and to get all those parties together, it was a little unusual, but it was a good opportunity."
Those community partners collaborated to present an impressive incentive package, Nichols said, which helped sell Katy Industries on Jefferson City.
Jefferson City and Cole County agreed to abate personal property and real estate taxes for a 10-year period through the end of CCP's 11-year lease, assuming the company follows through in creating the number of jobs it promises, and together, offered CCP an additional $500,000 infrastructure grant.
"There's always good incentive packages when you look at moving a location. Between the opportunities with the building and then the overall package of incentives together, I think those two things as a combination made it a better deal," Nichols said.
What about the jobs?
CCP plans to create 150 jobs in Jefferson City by December, when it will be fully operational, plus a potential 50 additional jobs by the end of 2016.
The Jefferson City facility will be a plastic injection molding operation with a textiles division and a distribution division. Katy Industries will move its corporate headquarters, also currently in Bridgeton, but has not yet determined a new location.
CCP's Jefferson City site will offer jobs in operations management; support staff; production, warehouse and textiles labor; and specialized trades such as maintenance, tooling and mold technicians. CCP is still determining the pay scale. "Our goal is to be competitive in the area," Nichols said.
While some positions will be filled by employees transferring from the Bridgeton facility, Nichols expects most to be filled by local hires.
"There will be some key positions transferred to kind of make sure we have a smooth transition," he said. "We expect some people to relocate to the area, but I'm not sure how many yet. My feeling is a large percentage are going to come out of the local area."
Nichols also said the move to Jefferson City is unrelated to Katy Industries' organizational restructuring over the past few years. The company recently sold off assets in Georgia and California, consolidating them into its Missouri facilities, and also acquired new assets in Fort Wayne, Indiana, last year.
The moves were an effort to improve manufacturing efficiencies and reduce overhead costs, refocusing on CCP as the company's core business, according to Katy Industries' 2014 annual report.
The company had taken a net loss of $1.5 million in 2013, but turned a $2.5 million profit in 2014. Katy Industries attributed the upswing to its 2014 Indiana acquisition as well as increased demand for CCP's products, the annual report stated.