Cold-cuts maker Dietz & Watson will build a $50 million,
200,000 square-foot trucking and distribution center on a large tract between
the company's Tacony Street headquarters and the old Frankford Arsenal on the
Delaware River, Gov. Corbett and Mayor Nutter confirmed this morning.
The deal was first reported from industry and city sources
June 18 in The Inquirer.
The center will employ 110 who will pack and ship Dietz
& Watson and Black Bear-brand meats and cheeses. Another 50 or more jobs
will be created as the facility expands, Corbett said in a statement.
The center will replace a seven-year-old warehouse in
Delanco that was destroyed last summer in a spectacular fire. Dietz &
Watson employs almost 700 at its meat plant and headquarters next to the
planned new site. The company processes cheese at a plant in Corfu, N.Y., and
turkey and chicken in Baltimore.
The Corbett administration has offered to give the
75-year-old, family-run company more than $7 million in taxpayer funds to the
project, including $5 million from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital
Program (RACP), $2 million from the Pennsylvania First Program, and $125,000 in
training grants. It also plans another $7 million-plus in taxpayer-backed
loans, including $5 million from the Machinery and Equipment Loan fund and
$2.25 million from the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority.
The city helped arrange the company's $12 million property
purchase by swapping city-owned industrial land for property owned by the state
boating commission, which maintains a public-access dock on the property,
deputy mayor Alan Greenberger said. The state dock will remain open.
In a statement, Corbett praised his own staff, Nutter, City
Councilman Bobby Henon and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp.
"for their dedication" to bringing the Dietz & Watson development
to the city.
Nutter called Dietz & Watson boss Louis Eni to offer
city assistance after last year's warehouse fire.
Henon called Dietz & Watson "the perfect fit for
Tacony," and praised the company for bringing "family-sustaining
jobs" back to town.
Source:
Philly.com
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