By Neil Johnson njohnson@gazettextra.com April 11, 2022

 

JANESVILLE

The city of Janesville has galvanized three big-ticket tax incentive deals aimed at landing new manufacturing space and keeping one local bedding manufacturer’s operations in Rock County.

On Monday, the Janesville City Council, in its final meeting before reorganizing after the April 5 election, breezed through approval of three related tax-increment financing deals that would total $4.7 million in land, loans and job creation incentives in a plan to bring 786,000 square feet of warehousing and manufacturing space to the city’s south end.
 
The council with little discussion unanimously approved the three-pack of TIF deals that would include two giveaways of city land at 200 Innovation Drive and loan packages to Milwaukee developer Zilber Property Group totaling $4.3 million.

The deals would push forward plans by Zilber to build two separate industrial buildings: one that would total 500,000 square feet and another that would total 286,000 square feet. By square footage, the deals Monday would likely make Zilber the biggest commercial player in industrial space on Janesville’s south end.

Under a third TIF deal, the council also unanimously approved a $389,000 job creation incentive that would be paid to Serta Simmons Bedding Manufacturing under a plan by the company to add 100 local workers over the next few years.

All three deals would be structured as “pay-as-you-go” agreements that would be paid out through increased tax value to the properties over a nine-year span.

The Serta Simmons deal requires it to create and retain 100 new full-time jobs over the deal’s nine-year term, which runs for the life of the south-side TIF district where the new Zilber projects would be located.
 
Serta Simmons operates two bedding manufacturing facilities in Rock County: one at 1809 Adel St., a factory building built in 1968 on Janesville’s south side, and another at 1500 Lee Lane in Beloit.

Simmons seeks to consolidate both its Janesville and Beloit operations into one space. According to a city memo, the company is in negotiations with Zilber to do so in the 500,000 square-foot building it would build through the TIF deal.

The city said Zilber plans to build the 286,000-square-foot building on speculation, as the company has for the more than 500,000 square feet in Janesville over the past five years.

Most recently, the city awarded a $471,000 pay-as-you-go tax incentive deal for Rockford, Illinois-based pet treats maker Phelps Pet Products to move into a different property built and owned by Zilber—a 178,000-square-foot industrial space at 400 W. Venture Drive.

That deal would award Phelps if it maintains a certain number of family-supporting jobs, the threshold for which the city calculates at a pay rate of $20.82 per hour for a family of four.

The job creation formula used for the Serta Simmons deal reached Monday is based on a calculation of “living-wage” jobs that pay at least $20 an hour, city officials said.

Redevelopment Resources, a third-party Madison consultant the city has hired for economic development projects earlier this year, worked on the deal on behalf of the city.

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