Hate To Say We Told You So.

From Wilmington City Council meeting minutes for1/3/13

Paul Hunter – 200 Randolph Street – gave a presentation regarding the TBS contract

with the city for their facility on Nelson Avenue, in the waste water treatment’s

building. He explained that the company pays a $1 rental for the building and the Sewer

Department contributed over a half million dollars to purchase it. He said the expectation

in the five-year lease was the company would employ 100 workers and the income tax

receipts would make up for the free use of the building. He said that he estimates that

they only have around 20 employees and are almost two years into the contract, which is

much lower than expected. He said that number of employees [20] would generate about

$900,000 in annual wages or around $9000 in income tax to the city, which is far short

of the $550,000 that the sewer department has spent on that property. He added that TBS

can, at the end of the 5-year period, exercise an option to purchase the building for

$1 million or simply walk away and find another distressed city to set up shop on a 5-year

plan. Mr. Hunter added that the city is also paying more in property tax than it is

collecting from TBS and said that Brenda Woods was working on that. He said it was his

opinion that the city should be talking to the company and attempting to modify the

agreement or seek some legal form assurance that TBS is committed to purchasing the

property and/or increasing employment to the 100-jobs level that they promised.

Meeting Minutes 2/7/13

Councilman Wells said he checked over at TBS and did not think there was anything

going on at the business. Mayor Riley said that they workers had just returned a week or

two ago from Texas as they were doing on-site installation. He said there is traffic in and

out of there every day. He added that a lot of their business is not new ovens but in

refurbishing other units. He said that he goes out and sees the owner of Total Baking

Solutions every month or so. Paul Hunter said that if they were working off-site, then the

city might not be getting income tax for that work. He said that we should be checking in

with them to see how their progress is going to justify the $1/year rental of the building.

Mayor Riley said that he is staying in contact with the owners. He added that the bakery

business is undergoing many changes right now but they were hoping it would stabilize

soon

Posted by Paul Hunter