Top Fairfield employer plans for second expansion project since 2016, more jobs

Pacific Manufacturing in Fairfield, an automotive parts supplier, is planning to again expand its operations. It just recently finished an expansion of its facility a few years ago. GREG LYNCH/FILE

Credit: Greg Lynch

Credit: Greg Lynch

Pacific Manufacturing in Fairfield, an automotive parts supplier, is planning to again expand its operations. It just recently finished an expansion of its facility a few years ago. GREG LYNCH/FILE

Fairfield City Council will consider giving one of the city’s top private employers a tax incentive package that would make way for a $20.4 million expansion project.

This is the second incentive deal within the past five years the automotive parts manufacturer Pacific Manufacturing is requesting from Fairfield.

“Should this project proceed, the total project investment for the expansion is estimated at $20.4 million,” according to a staff report by Nathaniel Kaelin, Fairfield’s Economic Development manager.

Pacific Manufacturing is planning to construct a 64,616-square-foot addition to its existing facility at its campus at 8955 Seward Road, according to the proposed Community Reinvestment Area agreement to be presented to the council tonight. Adjacent to its main campus, the company is planning a new 57,750-square-foot at 3820 Port Union Road.

The project will increase and property tax revenues as it will create more than two dozen new full-time jobs for the company that produces a variety of metal and plastic components as a Tier 1 supplier to Toyota, Subaru and Honda.

In 2016, the auto parts maker received state tax credits and city tax incentives for a 72,000-square-foot expansion of its Seward Road facility, which led to about five dozen new jobs being created.

This expansion project would create around 30 new jobs as it retains its 797 full-time existing jobs, according to the proposed agreement. The plan is to fill the first six new hires by September 2022, and the remaining 24 by April 2023, according to the proposed agreement.

This expansion would solidify the company’s status as one of the city’s top five largest private employers. It’s the city’s second-largest industrial employer.

The anticipated future total payroll is expected to around $38 million, according to the agreement.

The Japan-headquartered manufacturer opened its Fairfield location in 1999. Pacific Manufacturing is requesting the tax incentive, in part, because it’s seen “20 years of continuous growth providing additional tax revenue to the state and local schools and community,” according to the CRA agreement.

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