The city recently agreed to sell the first lot in its new industrial park to CMI Specialty Products for $137,475.
The company, which makes electro-magnetic iron products, plans to construct an 11,000-square-foot headquarters at the corner of Redstone Hill Road and Business Park Drive.
“We’re very happy to welcome our first company to the industrial park,” said Mickey Goldwasser, a member of the Bristol Development Authority.
Joseph Bozzuto, who founded the company in 1980, said it began as a research firm that developed a propriety product called electromagnetic iron that’s now used in a wide array of magnetic control devices.
At one point, he said, the company had 150 employees working around the clock to manufacture the product, but these days it contracts out the work to firms in Waterbury and in Ohio.
There are only four people needed initially for its corporate office, Bozzuto said, where there will be administrative work, shipping and receiving and a bit of light manufacturing.
“The manufacturing of the product is definitely in our past,” he said. “We make a whole lot more money that way.”
Bozzuto said the new facility will be almost entirely for distribution.
“We could do this anywhere,” he said, but Bristol is close to home.
Bozzuto said the material is sold to companies in many nations, including China and India. “We ship this product all over the world,” he said.
The city’s Board of Finance and City Council recently agreed to give CMI a $65,000 aid package to move from Cheshire to Bristol. The grant would give the company $60,000 when it moves to town and as much as $5,000 for new jobs, with the money awarded at a rate of $1,000 per job over five years.
The new building would sit on a long, narrow lot formally identified as 105 Redstone Hill Road. Trucks would enter and exit from the business park road on its eastern edge.
Jonathan Rosenthal, the city’s economic development director, said that land use boards will review the plans before anything is built. But the BDA gave its blessing to the deal.
Rosenthal said it will take at least several months to complete the section of the industrial park eyed by CMI. He said he anticipates it will be done in May.
Construction of the new building is likely to begin this summer.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
20 comments:
This is a good step in the right direction. Usually all it takes is one company to come in and then it entices others to take another look.
50% off sale ...... Nice way to start .... NOT !!!!!!
How did we acquire this property? It doesn't sound like it was part of the Bugryn land "grab" ? ? ?
February 20, 2008 2:30 PM:
Keep dreaming. What about the empty buildings everywhere else?
Bristol did not need this. Another example of a dumb Democrat wasting the taxpayers money. Gee we only had to pay them $65,000. Translates to no tax revenue for a year or two at least.
Now the city only spent how much so far?
10:23
Good point. Unfortunately it is true. You have lower your price to meet what the market is willing to pay. The City incentives do that in fact if not in deed. But that is to be expected. The whole point of the project was to keep Yarde in town. When Yarde left town, the City was left holding the bag and was too pig headed to drop the matter and let the Brugyns keep their land. Instead they proceeded with a project for which there was uncertain demand.
Too bad for the Burgyns and too bad for Bristol taxpayers who will have to subsidize the project.
"The whole point of the project was to keep Yarde in town. When Yarde left town, the City was left holding the bag and was too pig headed to drop the matter and let the Brugyns keep their land"
-I agree. However I still don't think it was worth it even to keep Yarde Metals.
When will the negative bloggers learn that it takes money to make money? Yes, sometimes you will even give tax credits for a couple of years.
Let's do the math, 2-3 years of tax credits and 20-25 years of tax payments. Please look farther than your nose and more into the future.
The irony is that most of these negative individuals are possibly the same ones that complain about the high taxes in Bristol. It really makes no sense and neither do they.
This is just a mollify the public effort to take the pressure off of Rosenthal.
He sure knows how to manipulate the system.
February 21, 2008 5:45 PM:
If you're correct, kudos to you. So far ($20 million or so) you're not. Actually I hope you are right, because it's too late now.
I never agreed with taking the Bugryn's land for this, sorry.
I also believe it's VERY important to attract manufacturers here. It seems there were other ways to do this sort of thing besides emminent domain on this parcel of land. It also seems like too few companies are interested.
People on here are the ones that give Bristol a bad name. If it's as bad as you say .....leave you would probably be missed by your one or two friends. Bristol would then become a City without Kooks.
5:45
You are right the point is to make money - even it requires taking private property. But, wil this thing make money at fire sale prices. Will the first tenant (4 jobs for 5 years) stay if there is a better offer from another place. I doubt it. Meanwhile, we have sunk a bunch of money into property for which there was no apparent demand. The plan was to keep Yarde, the park was to give cover to a public taking for a private company. No Yarde and now we have another white elephant.
One thing I have to say about Bristol, the costs on these pet projects keep spiraling ever upwards. From the overrun on the Zoppo (oops Youth Services) building, to the industrial park, and in the future the downtown money pit.
Re: 7:37 AM from 5:45 PM
You may recall (if you are old enough) that in the late 70's there was no demand for the land in the Southeast Industrial Park.
The Board of Finance, much to the dismay of many people, decided to bond 6 million dollars and used eminent domain for some properties that Tomasso Brothers owned.
I have only 4 letters for you. ESPN.
Bugryns I guess some of you can't spell either .
7:37. I stand corrected in awe of your mighty intellect. Be real. Bristol hit the lottery with ESPN. Hitting the lottery is a matter of luck rather than planning. And it rarely happens twice. Do you think it will happen again? TPerhaps we have not been ambitious enough. Why not bulldoze all of southeast Bristol (no insult to my neighbors intended)? Get rid of tomorrow's slums today. Reduce future taxes by getting rid of future students.
Re: 3:50 PM poster
Smart people make their own luck. If you were there, you would know that there was 1/2 luck and 1/2 vision.
Bill Rasmussen had a vision, and most thought he was nuts. The key is vision. If one has no vision, they'll never experience a little bit of luck.
Well, sweet. Good thing it wasn't Yarde Metals. That would have been awful to have in town.
Hey 3:50, can you read?
The comment wasn't about ESPN being lucky, it was about Bristol being lucky that ESPN chose Bristol rather than another town.
February 24, 2008 3:24 PM:
Duh, well since this project is a sub-division (smaller lots) I believe your little pipe dream (another ESPN) is a dillusion.
February 22, 2008 3:50 PM:
I like your saracsm, but you might have some good ideas there anyway (demolish East Bristol and the West End and build a shopping mall a school and a TV corporate HQ).
Will we ever get a public accounting of teh dollars spent in this effort?
Any truth to the story that here has been/is another delay on the Park, essentially due to mismanagement?
Seems like there is no information forthcoming.
Post a Comment