Steel company to build new facility in Southern Indiana

Steel processor Indiana Steel and Tube will build its new facility in Brownstown, Ind., boosting the southern Indiana town’s economy with new jobs and more incoming facility taxes, officials say.\nThe company plans to build the facility at the intersection of U.S. 50 and Indiana Highway 135 beginning in March, creating more than 100 new jobs by 2010 and supporting local economic development in the town, which is located about 45 miles south west of Bloomington. The new jobs will make up for those the town will lose when another company in Brownstown closes its doors.\n“This is very good news for Brownstown,” said Jim Plump, executive director of the Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation. “The facility is really filling a big void not only from an employment standpoint but also a tax standpoint.”\nDura Automotive Systems, the community’s largest employer, is closing its facility in Brownstown, Plump said. He said the facility employed more than 100 people, the same number of jobs Indiana Steel and Tube plans to create by 2010.\nPlump said discussions about the new facility started in the third quarter of last year, so the project moved very quickly. He said deciding the location of the new facility was relatively easy – the hard part was finding funds to repair existing infrastructure as well as building new infrastructure near the property.\nMitch Frazier, spokesman for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, said the development corporation offered Steel and Tube up to $650,000 in performance-based tax credits and up to $75,000 in training grants if the company creates as many jobs as it has projected. Frazier said the development corporation will also provide Brownstown with a grant of up to $65,000 to assist in off-site infrastructure improvements and a grant of up to $75,000 to improve State Road 135.\n“With layoffs in Bloomington, Martinsville and Brownstown, the new facility is absolutely important,” Frazier said.\nFrazier said the development corporation helps bring new jobs and replace lost jobs, resulting in a net gain in jobs in the area since Christmas. \n“We’re confident that replacing jobs will diversify and stimulate the economy,” Frazier said.