TUSCALOOSA - Power and Rubber Supply Inc. is raising its roof as part of a $3.3 million expansion.
The Tuscaloosa-based company will expand its conveyor belt center on Resource Drive so that it can have larger cranes needed to handle bigger industrial belt coils.
Steve Davis, Power and Rubber’s president, told the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority that the company had been processing 1,000-foot rolls of industrial belts but is moving to 2,000-foot rolls. To accommodate the bigger rolls, the company will have to build a higher roof.
The expansion also will result in an additional 15 jobs and a $3.3 million capital investment.
Davis said the belts are used on conveyor lines to move coal for customers, including Jim Walter Resources in Brookwood.
The IDA’s board of directors granted the company an abatement of $238,966 in property and sales taxes over 10 years for the job-creating expansion. The authority has the power to grant a partial abatement of taxes to new and expanding manufacturers that create additional jobs in Tuscaloosa County.
Power and Rubber’s expansion is expected to start in early June and be completed by August 2012.
In other action, the authority approved an additional tax abatement for Gaylord Chemical, which moved its chemical manufacturing plant from Louisiana to Tuscaloosa last year. Gaylord made additional investments in upgrading its plant, which is next to Hunt Refining Co. Its total tax abatement is now $1,358,000.
The board also took action to allow Hunt Refining to seek two additional bond issues of $150 million each for its ongoing expansion.
If funds are still available, one of the bond issues will be for nontaxable Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds. GO Zone bonds were created by Congress to help Gulf Coast areas recover from Hurricane Katrina. Tuscaloosa County is authorized to allow up to $450 million in such bonds.
IDA Executive Director Dara Longgrear also told the board that the county is in the running for three manufacturing plants. Three separate companies plan to build plants in the Southeast, and all are still looking at Tuscaloosa, he said.
He described the companies as a metal fabricator from the Pacific Rim that will employ about 120 people; a Western Europe metal fabricator that will employ about 250 people; and an automotive supplier that did not specify how many jobs it would create.
“New jobs are coming. There are some opportunities in this calendar year,” Longgrear said.