Princeton’s largest manufacturer is set to undertake a $62 million expansion that will add more than 100 jobs to the local workforce.
Bremner Food Group, a presence in Princeton since 1993, received preliminary clearance from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority Thursday for a tax incentive package of up to $5 million to fund the expansion.
Gov. Steve Beshear is expected to formally announce the news in a visit to Princeton Tuesday.
The governor is scheduled to speak at the Tourist Welcome Center next to City Hall at noon.
The proposed growth, intended as a three-year, multiphase process, will involve the company purchasing the former Fruit of the Loom/AFCO Manufacturing building about a half-mile from Bremner’s U.S. 62 plant.
The proposed expansion comes as the result of lengthy negotiation by the Princeton City Council, the Caldwell County Fiscal Court, the Princeton-Caldwell County Industrial Development Authority (IDA), the Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet and Bremner officials.
“The IDA is all the time looking at potential (for expansion) and tries to keep in contact with local industry,” said Princeton Mayor Gale Cherry.
Bremner, she added, had looked at the AFCO building before for a previous expansion opportunity, and company officials have been involved in ongoing conversations about 32 acres of city-owned land behind AFCO.
The IDA purchased the AFCO building for $800,000 in December 2008, nine months after AFCO shuttered its local operation.
The price for the building’s sale to Bremner has not been finalized, Cherry said, but is expected to be about half of what the IDA paid.
IDA officials borrowed $400,000 to purchase the building and hope to pay off that debt with the sale, she noted.
Part of the planned expansion involves the construction of an access road from the rear of Bremner’s current plant to a connection with the fire training center’s entrance road at the right side of the AFCO building.
The road will help ease traffic along the industrial stretch of U.S. 62.
How it will be built and funded is one of many details that remains to be finalized, said Cherry.
“The negotiations have not been completed. We will have an obligation to provide infrastructure.”
Part of those talks involved the Special Metals company relinquishing an option to the acreage behind the plants and allowing rights to revert to the city. The company received a reduction in its property rental rate in return.
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System, which owns the fire training center property, granted the city an easement to have access between properties.
“The city, county and IDA all worked together to make this expansion possible,” said Cherry, “and we also worked with the state for an extended period of time.”
The mayor noted the contributions of the economic development cabinet’s Jamie Bundren and local IDA board member Don Hancock in bringing the process toward completion.
Hancock, she said, acted as the IDA’s broker and custodian for the AFCO building, as well as its chief advocate to Bremner.
“I really credit Don with just having kept after these people and kept after them,” she said. “He’s just been a godsend to the whole process.”
She also extended thanks to Bremner executives Steve Smith and Darren Baker for their role in the negotiation process.
The expansion is anticipated to add more than 100 jobs to the local plant’s current roster of close to 650 employees.
The state’s proposed incentive package reportedly offers corporate tax credits and cuts in the company’s local payroll tax obligations.
News of the company’s plans for expansion offers a glimpse into the lengthy, often closed-door talks that precede such announcements.
“I know the community wonders what economic development is doing oftentimes,” said Cherry, “but this is the result of that.
“The city, county and IDA are now in a position to iron out the details of how this is going to be achieved.”
The IDA, she added, continues to be involved in marketing the vacant Fontaine Trailer building south of Princeton and numerous other local activities.
“We need to be constantly moving forward in our development by improving our quality of life and making opportunities available for our youth,” she said.
“It’s part of the whole package that has to be in place for industries to see us in a favorable light.”
Bremner, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ralcorp Holdings, is the nation’s largest supplier of private label cookies and crackers.
The plant’s expansion is “truly a blessing for our community,” said Judge/Executive Brock Thomas, who also sits on the IDA board. “We look forward to many years of continued growth with Bremner.”
