FORT WORTH -- The City Council approved a $796,000, 10-year tax abatement for ATC Logistics on Tuesday night in exchange for the company investing $18.5 million at its Alliance-area facilities and agreeing to fill the equivalent of 374 more full-time jobs.
The company will still end up paying $3.2 million in city property tax over 10 years.Council members voted 8-0 for the agreements.ATC has three facilities in the Alliance area. But the leases expire next year, and the company had considered moving to Atlanta, Nashville, or Reno, Nev., the staff said.ATC, based in Pittsburgh, has declined to answer most questions about its business, citing its private ownership.However, representatives who attended a recent council meeting said the new jobs will range from hourly to information technology, human resources, finance and marketing.ATC would renew its leases at 5201 Alliance Gateway Freeway, 13550 Independence Parkway and 13500 Independence Parkway for eight years. Under the abatement, it could abate up to 70 percent of the value of new business equipment and other property purchased over eight years.It could also earn another two years of abatement if it renews the leases beyond the initial eight.At the full 10 years of abatement, the company would save $796,000, or 70 percent of its projected tax on new personal property.ATC, in Fort Worth since 1998, refurbishes and repairs electronic products for AT&T, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and other companies, city staff have said.Under the abatement agreement, ATC, which has 1,705 full-time equivalents now, would maintain that number and bring on 135 more by the end of 2015 and 239 more through by the end of 2016.ATC promised to maintain a minimum of 35 percent of full-time equivalents from Fort Worth, and 30 percent from the central city inside Loop 820.The firm would invest $7 million in "business personal property" and $1 million in "real property improvements" by the end of 2013 at its local facilities.ATC would invest another $10.5 million in business personal property, which includes equipment such as conveyors, racking, computers and information systems, by the end of 2016.The company would spend a minimum 35 percent of construction costs with Fort Worth contractors and 25 percent with Fort Worth minority- and women-owned ones.It would spend a minimum $500,000 of annual supply and service expenses with Fort Worth contractors and $400,000 with minority- and women-owned firms.Failure to meet the first $8 million of investment by the end of 2013 would result in "immediate termination of the agreement," the staff said in a report to council members.Failure to meet the remaining investment would result in a reduction of the abatement, the staff said.In other business Tuesday, the council:Voted 8-0 to accept a sculpture donated by Mexican artist Yvonne Domenge and to include it in the city's Public Art Collection. The council approved up to $60,000 for the transport, storage, installation and lighting of the sculpture, called Tabbachin Ribbon, which will be placed at the Fort Worth Municipal Plaza, 1000 Throckmorton St. The money will come from the city's public art budget. The 13-foot-in-diameter metal sculpture is one of six commissioned for temporary display at Chicago's Millennium Park.Approved a historic overlay for the 4000 block of Linden Avenue on the west side. The area is a 19-home, 1930s-era street.Hear a report that the numbers of wrecks and citations have dropped at intersections since the installation of red-light cameras. Crash rates and the numbers of tickets issued are beginning to flatten out, city staff reported. "We might be reaching the point of saturation," Alonzo Linan, Fort Worth's assistant transportation and public works director, said during a council committee meeting.That doesn't mean the city should end the program, but it suggests that the city might not reap significant benefit from adding more cameras, Linan said.Scott Nishimura, 817-390-7808Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
