Council to consider tax abatement for potential PolyOne expansion

The City of Avon Lake and PolyOne Corporation are working on a community reinvestment agreement which could bring an 80,000-to-100,000-squarefoot expansion to the company’s main campus in 2020. Economic Development Committee approved a motion to send a 15-year tax abatement to Avon Lake City Council which could bring a new Global Innovation Center to PolyOne’s global headquarters at 33587 Walker Road. The nearly $25 million investment would bring 68 existing employees from PolyOne locations across the United States in addition to creating about 28 new jobs over five years. City officials began discussions with PolyOne in late 2018 about tax incentives and ideas for a potential research and development facility with talks picking up in early February. Economic Development Director Ted Esborn made it clear that the proposed 100 percent tax abatement is a process the city is going through with PolyOne. Esborn said if the project moves forward the city’s tax abatement tool was going to play a part in it. “This is a process right now where PolyOne is finding out whether this incentive is available,” Esborn said. “So, there are other possible places for this possible research and development facility. This is not a plan to do this. This is an incentive in Avon Lake.” If the project moves forward construction could begin as early as spring, 2019 with construction completed by spring, 2020. Kyle Rose, vice-president of corporate communications with PolyOne said the project would bring employees from locations in Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix and Chicago to Avon Lake that will allow the company to truly innovate and solve problems in materials science. was interested in what the City of Avon Lake would be willing to offer in the form of tax incentives. Details on how the facility would be used are continuing to be finalized. He stressed PolyOne has done a lot of work on what they want the facility to become. The proposal was approved by the Avon Lake City Schools Board of Education on Feb. 12 and the CRA Housing Council. Rose said PolyOne is looking forward to future collaborations with the school system to further promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education. PolyOne Corporation is a global provider of specialized polymer materials and services. PolyOne has operations in thermoplastic compounds, specialty polymer formulations, color and additive systems, thermoplastic resin distribution, and vinyl resins. The legislation will have its first reading on Feb. 25 with city officials hoping for passage on March 11.

“We are in about 30 countries right now. In many of those countries we also have labs and R and D (research and development) and testing facilities,” Rose said. “We have innovation centers and we have those assets right here in Avon Lake as well but what we don’t have is a truly global innovation center” “This would be a location where we would have representatives from all these different businesses that we offer our customers from engineered materials to performance additives to performance products,” Rose added. “And they would all be working together collaborating in a place where customers could come in from all around the world and solve these materials science problems together, side by side test and truly innovate. Rose said the innovation center would bring these assets together in a unified front like the 20-year-old company has never seen. Rose said PolyOne, in going through the process,