Fisker Automotive and the Delaware City Refinery Company Secure State Grant and Loan Recommendations
At a public meeting yesterday, the Council on Development Finance, the advisory board to the Delaware Economic Development Office, recommended the agency award loans and grants to seven projects on the agenda. The recommendations will help to finalize months of work by the Markell Administration to recruit the companies to Delaware. Here’s the rundown :
– Fisker Automotive was recommended for $21.5 million in loans and grants. Fisker will make plug-in hybrid electric cars at the former General Motors Boxwood Road plant near Newport. If the plant employs 2,495 workers and Fisker has spent at least $175,000,000 renovating the facility after five years, the Delaware Strategic Fund loan will convert to a grant. An additional $9 million grant will help with utility bills.
– The Delaware City Refinery Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of PBF Energy Partners, LP, was recommended for $20 million in loans and grants. PBF Energy will acquire the former Valero refinery in Delaware City and restart operations as early as spring 2011. Its loan agreement will also convert to a grant if the company spends in excess of $100 million and supports 600 full-time jobs per consecutive year for five years.
– Miller Metal Fabrication, Inc. was recommended for a loan in the amount of $300,000 to assist the company purchase new equipment to expand its current operations in Bridgeville. The investment will help create seven new jobs within the first year and four additional jobs after three years.
– RLDP Holdings, LP, a real estate holding company that owns property leased by Craig Technologies, Inc., was awarded a loan in the amount of $500,000. It will be used to make improvements to an existing facility in Seaford in order to relocate recently acquired Linus Tooling, Inc. from Pennsylvania to the site. Linus Tooling, in its new location, will be operating with three shifts of production and will create 10 to 15 new jobs over the next two to three years.
– US LUBES, LLC was recommended for a loan in the amount of $200,000 to renovate an existing building into a new distribution facility in New Castle. The site will accommodate the company’s consolidation of its East Coast locations to Delaware and create 30 to 35 new jobs.
– E. I. DuPont De Nemours and Company, DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions will be awarded a grant equal to a 3 percent company match, or a maximum of $240,000, of an $ 8 million capital expenditure for a new Photovoltaic Research Lab, as well as a laboratory for applied research and training of photovoltaic materials, structures and products at a new Chestnut Run facility in Wilmington. The company is also eligible for an additional $200,000 grant from the Blue Collar Training Fund, which will provide employee training related to the venture.
– The Association of Educational Publishers was recommended for a grant in the amount of $50,000 for building renovations, purchase of new machinery and equipment, furniture and fixtures, IT upgrades and for moving expenses. The company is relocating its national headquarters from Logan Township, N.J. to Wilmington in mid 2010, bringing 14 new jobs over two years into the city of Wilmington.