Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

Durham, not Cary, gets 155 new jobs

ACW gets incentives once denied by Cary

After getting the cold shoulder from Cary, a British manufacturing company chose Durham to build a factory and create 155 jobs over the next three years.

ACW Technology, a contract manufacturer that makes printed circuit boards and other electronic systems, will locate its new American subsidiary in the Research Tri-Center industrial park in South Durham.

The company will receive $70,000 in incentives from the city of Durham and $50,000 from the One North Carolina Fund, if it meets hiring goals.

ACW had been considering about 10 different sites in Wake, Durham and Franklin counties as well as sites in Maryland and Virginia. Cary officials last month declined to offer incentives to the company, citing worries about lowering the town's median salary, which is just under $47,000.

Cary council members also were concerned about how quickly the town would see a return on its investment.

The ACW jobs will pay annual wages of $33,457. The annual average wage in Durham County is $57,772, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Durham City Councilor Mike Woodard said he considers ACW a great fit for Durham, and he noted that the company plans to begin hiring immediately.

"It was a pretty clear-cut case to me of the good kind of quality jobs that we want in Durham," Woodard said. "The incentives were very reasonable given the payback we are going to get."

ACW plans to invest $4.9 million over the next three years.

Jeffrey Benes, ACW's vice president and general manager, said the company has signed a three-year lease on 30,000 square feet in Research Tri-Center and has an option for an additional 30,000 square feet.

About 90 percent of Research Tri-Center's 1.5 million square feet of space is currently occupied.

Benes said ACW will spend the next eight weeks renovating the space and expects to have the manufacturing facility up and running by April 1.

About 80 percent of the jobs will be on the assembly line, and the remainder will be engineers and managers, Benes said.

ACW currently has plants in the United Kingdom and China and counts commercial, aerospace and defense companies as customers.

Benes said the decision to locate in Durham came down to a mix of incentives, proximity to Raleigh-Durham International Airport and the ability to find a suitable location that would not require significant retrofitting.

"You want to be located in a community that you feel comfortable with and that community is willing to do things to help you start a business," Benes said.