TIF, WEDC tax credits help lure American Packaging Corp. to build DeForest plant
Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Jeff Glaze
American Packaging Corp., maker of flexible packaging for a wide variety of food, healthcare, hygiene and household products, plans to build a plant in DeForest and add as many as 300 employees there over the next decade.
American Packaging has more than 600 employees across three plants in Columbus, Wisconsin, Rochester, New York and Story City, Iowa. With a lack of adjacent developable land adjacent to the company’s Columbus plant, executives strongly considered expanding their Iowa plant.
Sam Blahnik, community development director for DeForest, said an incentive package that includes up to $750,000 in Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. tax credits and nearly $1.9 million in tax increment financing incentives (TIF) from the village helped secure a new plant in Dane County.
“Through the process the state of Iowa was very aggressive so it was very encouraging to see our state do what the could to allow this expansion to remain within our state’s borders,” Blahnik said, adding company executives have assured the state that the DeForest plant will not spell misfortune for Columbus.
“These are all new positions, new growth. They swore they were not going to shut down any of the Columbus operations,” he said.
Construction is already underway on the first, 165,000-square-foot phase, just west of Highway 51 on the village’s northern edge. It is expected to create more than 60 jobs and be operable by early next year.
Three subsequent phases are expected increase the building’s footprint to at least 400,000 square feet by the end of 2026. The additions are expected to accommodate about 300 jobs.
