Company to add jobs in Fairfield

Takumi Stamping of Fairfield will expand their plant, adding 13 new jobs to its Seward Road facility, which garnered the company a new tax abatement at Monday’s city council meeting.

Meanwhile, another company, formerly known as Keystone Foods, had their tax abatement rescinded because the company’s opening of a plant in Springfield ended up rendering the abatement legally void.

Takumi Stamping supplies Toyota with auto parts. The company built its facility in 2009, but has continued to grow. The company next year will add on 46,000 square feet to its facility at a cost of $3.5 million, said City Manager Art Pizzano. In the process, Takumi will create 13 new jobs, while retaining the 325 already at the facility.

In return, the company will receive a 75 percent abatement on property taxes for five years. This means that Fairfield City Schools will receive additional monies. It was already receiving $20,200 annually from the original Takumi agreement; now it will receive $8,300 additional each year, according to city documentation.

Tadashi Tashima, Takumi’s company coordinator, thanked the council and credited Fairfield with being a “company-friendly” city.

Fairfield had to rescind the agreement with Keystone Foods, which was bought out by the Martin Brower Company. The city had entered into an agreement with Keystone in 2010 for a 100 percent tax abatement. The company also operated another facility in Springfield, said Tim Bachman, the city’s development director.

For business reasons, the company decided to reduce staff in Springfield, and the Springfield facility eventually closed. The state determined that this met the definition of a relocation, which went against the terms of the tax abatement agreement, Bachman said. The Fairfield facility remains open.

“They haven’t lost any jobs in Fairfield, but nonetheless, the agreement they had under state procedures has been violated,” Pizzano said.

Fairfield City Schools will now receive its standard tax distribution, so the schools will not lose any money, Bachman said.

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