HAVERHILL — One door closes, another one opens.
With the recent announcement that the Southwick company, maker of Brooks Brothers suits, may be laying off 400 workers at the Broadway business park, Mayor James Fiorentini said Monday that he expects Tennessee-based Monagram Foods will be moving into the park.
The maker of Wild Bill’s beef jerky and Brookfield Farms foods, as well as licensed brands such as Johnsonville and Butterball, is closing in on a deal with the city to build a 135,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 25 Computer Drive off Route 97, the mayor’s office said.
“This is going to be one of the biggest business developments in Haverhill in some time,” Fiorentini said in a prepared statement. “This project is going to be a huge benefit to the city in terms of economic activity, tax revenue, good-paying jobs and perhaps most of all, good economic news at a time when we could really use it. These 350-plus jobs will be coming exactly when we need them the most, when so many of our citizens are hurting.”
The proposal includes 354 new jobs, Fiorentini said.
The company would lease the property from Paradigm, which owns the Broadway business park. The park currently has manufacturing and retail businesses including Southwick, Magellan Aerospace and a Target store.
Fiorentini said Monagram CEO Karl Schledwitz and other company officials were drawn to Haverhill because of its proximity to Interstate 495, among other factors. The company has 3,000 employees in Wilmington and six other states.
“We negotiated long and hard with this company to bring them here,” the mayor said. “We did not give them everything they wanted in terms of a tax break, but we did give them enough to have them be eligible for the much more generous state tax breaks.”
Fiorentini said the jobs are contingent upon and in exchange for the short-term tax breaks on the new building and future improvements the company would make to the leased Paradigm property. The jobs, set to be phased in during Monagram’s first three years in Haverhill, are a mix of manufacturing, warehouse and distribution positions.
Under the 10-year tax program, Monagram would pay 30% of its full property tax bill in each of its first four years in Haverhill, Fiorentini said. Payments then increase by 10% annually until the company is paying the full tax bill in a decade, he said.
Monagram Foods will pay an estimated $156,000 per year in property taxes by the time the discounts expire, the mayor said.
The tax credits come as part of a state partnership, and additional credits could be on the way after the state Economic Incentive Coordinating Council considers its contribution later this month, the mayor said.
Construction on the Monogram complex is expected to begin this summer, Fiorentini said, pending several local and state approvals, including one by the Haverhill Conservation Commission.
“This is a company that any community would be thrilled to welcome,” Fiorentini said. “But in the end, they chose Haverhill. We couldn’t be happier to have them.”
Fiorentini has long focused on bringing more business to the city’s industrial parks. In his January inaugural address and subsequently released Vision 2035 Master Plan, the mayor discussed his hope to bring 30% more growth to the city through the business parks.
Haverhill has three other business parks in addition to Broadway: Ward Hill, Hilldale Avenue and a smaller one on Newark Street.
