gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- City officials are prepping a $69,905 incentive offer to a British electronics manufacturer that may in return bring 155 jobs over the next three years to a warehouse on the edge of RTP.
The offer targets ACW Technology Ltd., which intends to open its first plant in this country to satisfy clients who want to buy American for reasons that include rapid turnaround from order to delivery, according to a presentation from Kevin Dick, director of the city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
Durham is in competition with sites in Franklin County, which has pledged $150,000 in incentives to the company.
The N.C. Department of Commerce has promised to match Franklin County's figuring, effectively doubling the offer to locate there.
Commerce Department officials have signaled that they're also likely to match Durham's offer, provided it's smaller than the one from Franklin.
City Council members are scheduled to approve the Durham offer Jan. 19, following a public hearing. They made no comment on the proposal during a work session Thursday.
Durham officials appear keen on landing the company because it'd offer more than 100 full-benefits jobs to people possessing only a high-school diploma. The company also figures on making a $4.9 million property investment and creating a network of 125 local suppliers.
That would have positive ripple effects for local small business, and over five years contribute about $646,800 to local coffers in sales-tax revenue alone, Dick said in his presentation.
City officials say ACW's local work force will earn an average salary of $33,651, but it appears most of the new hires would earn significantly less.
Some 105 would earn $23,718 a year -- the minimum under the city's liveable-wage policy -- exclusive of profit sharing and benefits. They would fill jobs in the firm's finance office, as production operators, quality control inspectors and as materials handlers.
Durham County's unemployment rate of 7.9 percent is lower than Franklin County's 10.2 percent, but Durham is far larger and has shed more jobs since the region's economy last peaked in late 2006 and early 2007.
Since then, Durham County has lost 6,432 jobs to Franklin County's 1,850, according to figures from the state Employment Security Commission.
ACW builds circuit boards and other devices for an array of clients that include aerospace and defense firms. It now operates factories in England, Wales and China.
Its push for a U.S. branch stems in part from the desire to satisfy clients worried about the protection of their intellectual property, Dick's presentation said.
The firm's potential Durham location would be a 30,000-square-foot warehouse in the Research Tri-Center, which is off South Alston Avenue just south of Cornwallis Road.
The Research Tri-Center belongs to an affiliate of the Grosvenor Group, a British development and investment company founded by one of the United Kingdom's best-known and wealthiest families. The company's chairman, David Douglas-Home, is a member of the House of Lords and the son of a former prime minister.
