VAM Seeks City Incentives for New Plant Location
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- City Council will consider legislation Wednesday that would enable VAM USA LLC to start work on an $81.5 million pipe threading and finishing operation that compliments Vallourec Star's new $1 billion pipe mill here.
Under a proposed enterprise zone agreement, first reported Monday by The Business Journal, VAM, an affiliate of Paris-based Vallourec Group, would acquire the vacant Genmak building at 1053 Ohio Works Drive and add another 70,000 square-feet to accommodate the new operation.
"They're evaluating it," says Youngstown’s economic development director, T. Sharon Woodberry. "It's one of the options they're looking at."
VAM USA announced in November 2011 at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber's Youngstown Ohio Utica and Natural Gas, or YOUNG, conference that it intended to construct a threading operation near its now-finished pipe mill.
A threading mill produces connections that are able to join pipe used in oil and gas exploration in across the country. VAM's headquarters is in Houston, where it operates three plants. The company also operates manufacturing facilities in Mexico and Canada.
Initially, the plan called for investing $57 million toward renovating a 200,000 square-foot building next to the new pipe mill. The Genmak building is further to the south of Vallourec Star's two plants just off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
VAM USA would receive an abatement of 75% on new real property taxes resulting from the project, Woodberry notes. The project expects to create 84 jobs within the first year, according to the enterprise zone request.
"We're hoping for a decision or an announcement over the next couple of months," Woodberry says.
Should the VAM plant project move forward, it would complete development at the city-owned Ohio Works Business Park, Woodberry reports. "It would put the park at 100% capacity," she says.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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