Council OKs Heartland tax abatement effort

Following action by the Greencastle City Council this week, Heartland Automotive is cleared to proceed with a new expansion project that will mean $8.3 million in additional capital investment and 43 new fulltime positions at the East Side manufacturing plant.

After conducting a public hearing on the Heartland proposal -- which is connected with expansion of the Subaru of Indiana (SIA) plant in Lafayette to keep up with increasing demand for new Subaru vehicles -- the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2016-3, approving 10-year tax abatement on the new Heartland equipment tied to the venture.

Greencastle Mayor Bill Dory, who guided many such projects through the city approval process in his years as executive director of the Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center, characterized the process as a "phase-in of new property taxes over the next 10 years."

Over time, Heartland Automotive will save $463,000 in taxes, while still paying $311,106 in taxes on the new equipment during the 10-year period. Without tax abatement, Heartland would have been responsible for $774,446 in taxes over the 10-year cycle.

New Development Center Director Kristin Clary noted that Heartland currently employs 369 to 375 people, while the new positions will start at $11-$13 per hour, she said.

Statistics show that 63 percent of the Heartland workforce calls Putnam County home, with 167 of those residing in Greencastle.

The new equipment is expected to start being put in place at Heartland in June with a November completion to coordinate with the Subaru project. The Lafayette plant is expected to add 1,200 jobs this year to meet the high demand for Subaru Outbacks and Legacys with the domino effect impacting Heartland as an auto parts supplier to SIA.

Heartland Automotive has made a habit of expanding its Putnam County operations over the more than a quarter-century that the Ota City, Japan-based company has called Greencastle its American headquarters. Over those years, Heartland's investment in equipment alone has well exceeded $50 million, local officials have noted.

Since 1988, Heartland has paid total taxes of $9.1 million to date on its manufacturing properties.

When Heartland purchased the old Ryan Building at 300 S. Warren Drive, it promised to bring 100 new positions to a community that had just lost 985 jobs with the closing of the Greencastle IBM plant. The 107,000-square-foot Ryan Building, which IBM had mainly used for storage, was built as a new Angwell Curtain factory facility in the late 1960s.

After expanding operations multiple times, Heartland now produces auto parts in a sprawling 300,000-square-foot plant that bears little resemblance to the original facility with a workforce four times the number of positions originally promised.