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MassDevelopment In The News
New Plant Lands $4.5 Million Bond
November 27, 2007: Berkshire Eagle, by Ellen Lahr
PITTSFIELD — Petricca Industries has received $4.5 million in tax-exempt bond financing for its new metal fabrication plant.
MassDevelopment announced yesterday that TD Banknorth purchased the tax-exempt bonds through the quasi-public agency, which arranges financing for business and manufacturing investments that will trigger job growth.
Petricca projects 40 new jobs at the Laurel Street plant — now under construction — within five years.
The 22,100-square-foot facility will house a new operation of Unistress, the Petricca subsidiary that makes precast, prestressed concrete for parking garages, roads, bridges, buildings and other concrete projects.
Perri C. Petricca, president of the family-owned construction firm, could not be reached yesterday to comment on the financing deal.
Unistress has been buying metal fabrication materials from an outside supplier for use in its concrete slab production, but now the Laurel Street plant will manufacture metal components, said Frank Canning, vice president of investment banking for MassDevelopment.
"It's part of their casting process, and instead of having it done elsewhere, they'll do it internally themselves," Canning said.
He said Unistress has been buying its metal fabrication products outside of Massachusetts.
Through MassDevelopment, TD Banknorth can lend $4.5 million to Petricca at a reduced interest rate — Canning did not disclose the terms — because the bank will be exempt from paying income tax on loan payments.
The new facility is about two miles south of Petricca's headquarters on Cheshire Road.
Petricca's expansion of the Unistress operation is felt elsewhere in Pittsfield, in particular, the Partridge Road neighborhood.
The company wants to rezone part of the area — an open farm tract — from residential to light industrial, to allow Unistress to store its manufactured concrete because the Cheshire Road site is short of space.
The rezoning plan has galvanized heavy opposition from residents of the Partridge Road neighborhood, and the Pittsfield City Council is scheduled to meet tonight at City Hall to continue its discussion of the matter.
The Laurel Street facility originally was to have been built at the William Stanley Business Park, a city-run redevelopment on the site of the former GE plant.
However, that plan fell through last summer when soil tests revealed that the building would require a costly underground support structure.
Canning estimated that the company would spend a total of about $5 million at the Laurel Street site.
MassDevelopment announced the Petricca award yesterday as part of a $19.4 million bond financing program aimed at five Western Massachusetts manufacturing expansion projects. Other projects are in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties.
MassDevelopment recently expanded its Western Massachusetts offices from Springfield to Pittsfield.
Rhonda Serre, vice president of business development, is working at the office in the Central Block on North Street, networking with area businesses to help them gain access to MassDevelopment's financial resources and administrative services.
She said that MassDevelopment has seen strong signs of business growth and investment in the Berkshires, despite recent closings and layoffs in area paper mills.
"Our big push right now is in industrial development bonds. That's what we really want to focus on," Serre said. "Manufacturing is still the basis of our economy. No matter how big our cultural and creative economy is, we still have this backbone of manufacturing and need to keep it strong.
"There could be some very solid growth in the next 24 months. We haven't seen momentum like this in a long time."
© Copyright 2007 Berkshire Eagle.
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