Ventower plant here: textbook teamwork

PUBLISHED: The Monroe Evening News: Sunday, April 4, 2010

The combined and determined efforts of many led to a major industrial investment during a time of economic hardship.

Ventower plant here: textbook teamwork - Monroe is getting a new “green” industry.

Ventower Industries is starting construction on a 115,000-square-foot plant on a 38-acre brownfield site at the Port of Monroe that will fabricate the large towers used to support electricity¬ generating wind turbines.

It will mean about 300 short-term construction jobs, about 150 long-term permanent industrial jobs, improvements to the Port of Monroe, and the prospects for expansion in a growth industry.

Given the fragile state of the economy, the estimated investment of at least $19 million in Ventower certain¬ly is a welcome and hearten¬ing development.

But the ceremonial groundbreaking held last week wasn’t only a celebra¬tion of a new industry. It was the culmination of an amazingly concerted and complex effort by company, local, state and federal of¬ficials — combined with a dose of luck — that made the development possible.

It began with Gregory Adanin, a steel sales execu¬tive who saw potential uses for his product in the wind¬ energy business. A Brown¬stown Township resident, he began more than two years ago looking around the Midwest for some potential sites, focusing on Michigan and Ohio.

Port and city officials entered the picture, aided by state and federal agencies, and the project began to take shape. Promised incentives and wooed by local acquain¬tances, Mr. Adanin’s firm de¬cided on a Monroe site over a competing site in Toledo.

Pieces of the project slowly began falling into place. Unfortunately, this was occurring at about the same time the economy was moving into a full tail-spin.

For months, the company’s project financing, and its future, was in limbo.

The port put together a package that included some infrastructure improve¬ments and an available site.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency provided a $2 million brownfield loan.

Coincidentally, the federal economic stimulus bill eased requirements for some Small Business Administra¬tion loans, which led to a low-interest $4 million loan to Ventower. Also due to the stimulus bill, the company got a $2.5 million advanced energy manufacturing tax credit.

At the state level, the Michigan Economic Devel¬opment Corp. backed a state employment credit worth up to $3.7 million over 10 years and a brownfield redevelop¬ment credit worth up to $5.8 million. Some of the money became available only be¬cause projects elsewhere in the state had petered out.

Now, Monroe County Community College expects to authorize bonds to pay for specific worker training to the company. The bonds will be paid off from payroll withholding taxes. The City of Monroe is intending to grant tax breaks on real and personal property.

And Ventower’s investors themselves are putting up between $4 million and $6 million. Company officials are convinced that settling in Michigan was the right move. They say they expect to expand the plant about a year after it begins produc¬tion.

Everyone involved at every level — from local to state to federal officials — deserved¬ly can take pride in the Ven¬tower project, which was a textbook case of teamwork.

The project itself, and the effort behind it, should spur additional investment in the future and go a long way toward providing Monroe County and Michigan with the economic diversification they so badly need.