Elements of an incentives package assembled to help lure a new manufacturer to the Port of Muskogee continue to fall into place.
Public hearings are planned in October for a special tax district that would generate revenue that would be used to finance infrastructure improvements pledged as part of the incentives package. Those improvements include flood protection — constructing levees and raising the elevation of designated tracts — and port terminal infrastructure projects that include dockside rail, dock substructures, moorings and roads.
Public hearings are scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 11 and Oct. 25 during Muskogee City Council meetings. Port Director Kimbra Scott said a date has yet to be determined for “consideration of the TIF ordinance and the approval of the economic development agreement and financing package.”
Gov. Kevin Stitt announced earlier this month during a Muskogee Rotary Club luncheon he had offered $1 million from the governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund to an Atlanta company looking to build at the Port of Muskogee. The Tulsa World identified in an article posted Tuesday on its website as Aero Nonwovens LLC.
Scott described the “information that appeared in the Tulsa World” as “erroneous.” The World credited the Oklahoma Department of Commerce as its source of information for the article.
District 1 Commissioner Ken Doke described efforts to recruit the prospective manufacturer as getting “pretty far along in that process.” While a spokeswoman at the Commerce Department told the World there has been no acceptance of Stitt’s offer, Doke said the company has been pre-approved for a $3 million financing package through Muskogee County Industrial Development Trust Authority.
“We have to be careful about what we say because we’re under a nondisclosure agreement,” Doke said when discussing the prospect of landing what recruiters have dubbed Project Constellation. “All of these moving parts are going to go together, and now we’re providing that information back to the company … We’re hoping that any time we’ll be able to make announcement.”
The proposal approved by the TIF Review Committee, made up of representatives of entities that will give up a portion of the ad valorem tax revenue during the district’s 10-year existence, would generate projected revenue totaling nearly $18.63 million during that period. More than $11.13 million would be spent for flood protection and infrastructure improvements at the Port of Muskogee, and more than $1.39 million would be redistributed to the taxing entities in shares proportionate to annual allocations — the balance would go toward financing costs and other expenses.
A summary of projected expenses shows road and rail improvements for the tract of land that would be developed for the manufacturer being recruited would cost $925,000. About $5.1 million of TIF revenue would be directed toward flood protection projects, and another $4 million would be directed toward port infrastructure projects that include dockside rail and bulkheads, dock substructures and terminal roads.
Project Constellation would create at least 200 new jobs and is expected to make a capital investment worth $323.49 million at the Port of Muskogee if a new plant is built there. The average annual wage and salaries of those jobs is expected to be nearly $44,000.
