New Jobs, Firms To Come to Paulding

A Japanese company expanding its presence in Dallas is expected to bring 30 new jobs to the county, and the impact of that expansion as well as other firms set to come to Paulding could bring many more.

Representatives with Paulding County Economic Development and the Paulding County Industrial Building Authority helped County Commission Chairman David Austin Thursday announce that MG International was set to expand its Dallas operations as Austin spoke to those in attendance at the monthly Paulding Business Association luncheon.

MG International, or MGI, is a Japanese company that manufactures automotive parts for Nissan and Toyota vehicles. The company will soon begin producing a new component for 2013 cars, and the expansion associated with the production will create 30 new jobs when fully complete; the company is currently hiring several engineers and expects to have 10 new production workers hired by March, local leaders say.

“If you put those 30 new jobs and looked at it as a separate manufacturing company, it’d be the fifth- or sixth-largest manufacturer in Paulding County,” said Jamie Gilbert, executive director of Paulding County Economic Development, who spoke to Dallas-Hiram Patch after Thursday’s announcement. “That’s a lot of jobs for Paulding County, and it’s why we’ve made the argument that we have to work with existing industry. [But] there are not enough companies [already in Paulding], and they’re not large enough to create the amount of new jobs that are needed to erase that 76 percent [of county residents leaving the county for work each day].”

MGI’s plans call for the expansion to occur in two phases, with the second phase resulting in construction of a 40,000-square-foot addition in 2014. The new equipment and production area for the project is expected to have a capital investment of $9.5 million.

Officials say the establishment of an opportunity zone in Dallas and Paulding County led to MGI’s intention to expand. For doing so, the company will receive opportunity zone job tax credits and a partial property tax abatement to offset the investment costs.

“MGI is very pleased that Paulding County and Georgia have agreed to help us with our expansion,” said MGI’s president, Tiger Yamamoto, in a news release last week. “We will be investing substantial resources in the Dallas facility. The opportunity zone job tax credits and partial property tax abatement will significantly help us reduce the overall costs of the project. The job tax credits, which offset state corporate income taxes and payroll withholding taxes, are almost like a grant, which will be extremely helpful to the project. MGI couldn’t be happier with the support Paulding County has given us, and we are pleased to be moving forward with the expansion in Paulding.”

“As you’re looking at this major announcement by MGI announcing they are expanding, they’re expanding because of the opportunity zone and the job tax credits they’re going to receive,” Austin told those in attendance at the PBA meeting.

Austin earlier announced MGI’s expansion plans during Tuesday’s Candidates Forum held by the (Dallas-Hiram Patch ).

The opportunity zone, Austin said Thursday, is rewarded through a census tract and impacts areas officials deem economically depressed.

The opportunity zone offers job tax credits of $3,850, he said, adding that both existing and new companies, no matter the size, are eligible if they can create two or more jobs.

“I can’t tell you how excited we were when we received this opportunity zone, because we’ve never had these type of tax incentives in Paulding County before,” Austin added.

Gilbert said MGI’s 30 new jobs could result in many more down the road.

“The multiplier effect that gets created with manufacturing is unlike any other industry,” he said. “Whether you’re talking about professional services or retail, those businesses typically do not create new jobs based on the jobs they create. But manufacturing, you create two, three, four new jobs for each manufacturing job that gets created. That is a proven formula that’s been tried and tested.”

Other entities aiding in moving the project forward included officials with the city of Dallas, the Paulding County Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Department of Economic Development and the Georgia Department of Labor.

More firms ready to flock to Paulding

Blake Swafford, who heads the county’s Industrial Building Authority, also spoke to those in attendance at the PBA meeting. He first addressed the county’s recently approved public-private partnership with Panattoni Development Company, which . Panattoni is a commercial real estate development company specializing in industrial, office and retail projects.

 “They do deals with folks like GE and GM and Fortune 100 companies. We now have a public-private partnership with Panattoni to develop the 110 acres that’s off Bill Carruth Parkway into a Class-A industrial park,” Swafford said. “Panattoni doesn’t come to counties very easily; they don’t often partner with counties—they normally partner with the large Fortune 500 companies and then figure out where they want to be and then go build their facilities, but they’re partnering with us, which says a lot of things for us.

“One of the reasons they are partnering with us is because there’s a fish on the hook—Panattoni was in Europe a couple of weeks ago and they have now signed the agreements with an international manufacturer who is going to be the first tenant in the Paulding Commerce Park off Bill Carruth Parkway. It’ll be a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing and showroom facility, and it’ll be their North American headquarters.”

Swafford said the impending deal would lead to what officials believe would be the first North American headquarters of an international company to be located in Paulding. Details of the agreement with Panattoni and the manufacturer are forthcoming, he said.

But one recent deal he did disclose Thursday was an agreement with Haddad’s Incorporated, a firm that supports the film industry. The company will go into the new Dallas Industrial Park, a 120-acre park off West Memorial Drive.

“They would not be coming here without the film studio. The film studio is the impetus for them coming; the opportunity zone helps, the tax incentives from the state of Georgia helps, but without the film studio, they would not be coming here,” he said.

Swafford said Haddad’s is the largest film support unit company east of the Mississippi River, adding that the firm will help in recruiting other film industry companies to the county.