DCX gets tax break in Warren

Web-posted Apr 28, 2007

Automaker will save more than $800,000

By NORB FRANZ

Of Journal Register News Service

City officials in Warren have responded to DaimlerChrysler AG's planned $32 million investment at the Warren Stamping Plant by awarding the company a property tax break. City Council members voted unanimously to grant an Industrial Facilities Tax Exemption that will save the automaker an estimated $863,000 in city taxes over the next dozen years.

Michigan law allows municipalities to approve a 50 percent property tax reduction on new manufacturing buildings, machinery and equipment for up to 12 years. Under Warren tax break guidelines, DaimlerChrysler's latest retooling project easily qualified for the maximum terms.

The $32 million investment mostly involves new presses at the stamping plant on Mound Road, south of Nine Mile Road.

Company spokeswoman Maura Cook said she could not guarantee where those steel components and assemblies - to be used for the next generation of full-size and compact pickup trucks - will end up. But currently, they are used for the Dodge Ram and Dodge Dakota pickups built next door at the Warren Assembly Plant. Installation of new machinery is expected to begin around Aug. 1.

DaimlerChrysler executives anticipate the project will enable the company to retain 420 jobs at the Warren Stamping Plant, although officials caution that amount is subject to market conditions, according to city records.

"DaimlerChrysler's manufacturing facilities located in the south end of Warren are an economic anchor of our community," Mayor Mark Steenbergh said in a memo urging council members to approve the company's request for tax incentives.

As of Dec. 31, the company employed 5,761 hourly and salaried workers in the city, with local payroll of more than $362 million, according to figures provided by DaimlerChrysler to The Macomb Daily. The firm is the second-largest employer in Warren, ranking only behind competitor General Motors Corp.

Overall, 867 Warren residents work for DaimlerChrysler, with 672 retirees also calling the city home.

Warren Councilwoman Carolyn Kurkowski Moceri said city officials owed it to the company to provide tax relief for continuing to invest in Warren.

"We are proud partners of DaimlerChrysler," she said. "Anything we can do to help them out, I think it's our duty to do that."

The tax abatement is the third for DaimlerChrysler in Warren in the past four years. In 2003, council approved a tax certificate applied to a $64 million investment at Warren Stamping. The project retained 393 jobs. Last year, the company invested $106 million at the Warren Assembly plant.