DAVENPORT, Iowa - A major economic project could be coming to the Quad Cities and bringing jobs along with it. Sterilite is a Massachusetts based plastic manufacturing company considering a new facility in Davenport as of Tuesday January, 3 2017.
“This is another one of those steps in making davenport an even greater city for everyone in our community and the entire quad cities region,” says Davenport Mayor, Frank Klipsch.
The east-coast based company Sterilite makes plastic totes and containers found in almost everyone's house. Now, the company wants to make them in Davenport.
The new development in Northwest Davenport would be the largest single building in the city and span across 160 acres on the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center site. More importantly, it would bring 500 jobs with benefits.
“This is a great location, a great workforce and a great community to locate a great company,” added Mayor Klipsch.
The total cost for the company to break ground is $73 million. Davenport aldermen say the company will fund most of the cost and the rest would come from city and state incentives.
“The way our incentives work from the city is generated by property tax, so actually it's taxes that the business will create by building the plant here,” says Bruce Berger, director of planning.
The deal with Sterilite isn't set in stone. The city still has to approve $17.7 million dollars in local incentives before they could move forward.
For people who might be afraid their taxes will rise, Berger says that shouldn’t be a concern and most of the money is coming from the company.
“Five hundred new jobs tremendous amount of expansion and the largest building in the Davenport area its really good news,” added Mayor Klipsch.
The city of davenport will meet on Wednesday January 4, 2017 to discuss the plans. Aldermen say it may be several weeks before all the paperwork is approved with construction possible in about a year.
Of the 500 jobs, 400 of them would pay between $12 to $16 dollars per hour. The rest would pay around $18.75 per hour.