FALL RIVER — In exchange for letting the company save roughly $150,000 in property taxes over the next five years, city officials have been promised that the company that owns Merrow Manufacturing will create as many as 300 jobs over the next decade.
TIGIR LLC – which owns Merrow Manufacturing, Merrow Sewing Machine Company and the Merrow Incubator – was approved by the city’s Tax Increment Finance Board Thursday for a special tax assessment agreement that City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros said is the first of its kind in Fall River.
Under the agreement, TIGIR LLC will be exempt from paying 100 percent of the property taxes owed on its Bedford Street property in fiscal 2020. It will then gradually pay larger percentages of its tax bill over the course of the following four years: 25 percent of the bill in 2021, 50 percent of the bill in 2022, and 75 percent of the bill in 2023 and 2024.
In exchange for this tax break, TIGIR LLC has pledged to create new jobs and invest $15 million in partnership with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative in its Bedford Street facility.
“The type of business that we’re building has the opportunity to transform the industry of sewing and soft-goods manufacturing and this is a particularly strategic place to be,” said CEO Charles Merrow. “Fall River has a remarkably unique opportunity in place to be within a stone’s throw of some of the most sophisticated research institutions in the country.”
Under the umbrella of TIGIR LLC, Merrow’s companies currently manufacture sewing machines and run a sewing shop at the former Pepperell Mill on Bedford Street. What Merrow proposes with this new investment is expanding the business into creating fabrics that have technological components stitched into them.
According to Vivieros, TIGIR is developing a material used for holstering and storing firearms. Sensors woven into that material would alert the gun’s owner if the gun was removed from its storage location by someone other than them.
“It could actually include sensors woven into the fabric,” Viveiros said.
According to the tax agreement approved by the TIF Board on Thursday, TIGIR is required to create a minimum of 100 new full-time jobs over the next five years. The agreement also speculates that number could end up being over 300.
When asked to describe what kinds of positions would become available prior to Thursday’s vote, Merrow said roughly two-thirds of the positions would be lower-paying stitching jobs while a third would be technical roles elsewhere in the company. He estimated that the majority of the positions would have a salary range of $30,000 to $50,000 a year, while highest-paying jobs could have salaries of $120,000.
TIGIR has also pledged to make “reasonable efforts to hire qualified residents of the city of Fall River,” according to the agreement, and to make good-faith efforts to use local contractors throughout and renovations or construction.
The state has yet to approve the $15 million Massachusetts Technology Collaborative grant that TIGIR has said it will invest in the project. Another necessary step is getting the City Council to approve the special tax assessment agreement.
The agreement made with TIGIR was not the only proposal voted on by the TIF Board Thursday.
Raw Sea Foods Inc and Ice Cube LLC, companies both associated with the company Hutchens Holdings, were also approved for tax increment financing agreements with the city. Together, these businesses will save over $320,000 in property taxes over the next five years. They both have pledged to create a combined 32 new full-time jobs over that same time period.
Alexandra’s Boutique Inc., which opened the store Alexandra’s Too in the former Capitol Theatre earlier this year, was granted a five-year TIF worth over $67,000. The company has promised to create 15 new full-time jobs through the investment.