The Gary Common Council is considering an incentive agreement aimed at enticing a Chicago Ridge, Ill.-based trucking company to relocate to Gary, officials said.
HMD Trucking, Inc., is interested in building a new facility and administrative offices at a site in the 1300 block of Texas Street in Gary, a city and a company official said. City officials say that the company’s relocation would result in about 500 new jobs — half for truck drivers and the other half for administrative support staff.
Those jobs would be created during a five-year time period following the 19-year-old company’s move to Indiana, which could occur later this year, Redevelopment Commission Executive Director Joseph Van Dyk and HMD’s president and founder Henry Malukas said. The city’s Redevelopment and Plan commissions already have approved the plan, and it’s now pending before the city’s Common Council.
The council has the issue on its agenda for its next regularly scheduled meeting June 6, and final approval could come then.
The company has asked the city for a tax break to offset the cost of building a new facility, which would be located in an existing tax increment finance district, Van Dyk said.
Under the proposal beforethe Common Council, HMD would be able to use the money it would otherwise pay in property taxes on its facility.
Also under the plan, the city would use monies generated by the rest of the Midwest Center for Industry TIF district to resurface 15th Avenue to provide adequate access to the site, which Van Dyk said would cost about $5 million to build.
Some 17,000 square feet of space would be used for trucking interests, while another 9.000 square feet would be for office space.
Both city and company officials say they plan to staff the new facility largely with Gary residents. The jobs would be full-time, Malukas said, although he declined to say how much they would pay.
Van Dyk said he has been told HMD plans to bring four administrative staffers from its current location in Chicago Ridge with it to the new site in Gary.
Tammi Davis, a city compliance officer, said she has negotiated deals with HMD and with Ivy Tech Community College in Gary.
The school has a program that trains commercial truck drivers, and the agreement would have the company promising to give the school’s graduates priority for any jobs at the Gary facility, Davis said.
She said that priority also would be given to employees hired for other types of jobs ranging from truck mechanics to information technology specialists to on-site security personnel.
Davis said her office has worked out a memorandum of understanding between the company and the college to ensure Gary residents are trained to the company’s standards.
“We want to make sure they have the right kind of training to handle these jobs,” she said.
Councilwoman Mary Brown, D-3rd, said she was pleased to hear of such commitments being negotiated now.
“There are a lot of companies that talk about wanting to move to our city, but we don’t always get the construction or other jobs that result,” Brown said. “Here, we’re talking about hiring, and training, people for excellent jobs.”
Davis said she also has worked with entities such as the Gary Chamber of Commerce to ensure that when HMD needs to hire companies to service their events that they are aware of Gary-based options.
She also said the city plans to coordinate job fairs later this year to make local residents aware of both construction jobs and trucking jobs at the company, and also is seeking a promise beyond the initial five-year agreement that the company will give Gary residents serious consideration for employment.
“We don’t want to create circumstances where some residents get hired, then are the first to be let go,” she said.
Malukas said he is serious about wanting to hire local residents. It’s to his financial advantage if his workforce lives nearby and does not have to make a lengthy commute, Malukas said.
“If they’re living in other cities, even if it’s right nearby in Chicago, that’s still an hourlong commute,” he said. “Nobody benefits from that.”
