February 22, 2014 — City officials said Friday they’re excited to share the news that an Illinois-based seafood processing company is firming up plans to bring a plant with up to 225 jobs to Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park.
They expect the City Council to give the project an important green light at the board’s meeting Tuesday night.
As reported in Friday’s Times, the Mazzetta Company LLC, based out of the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill., plans to open a seafood processing plant, with the city agreeing to offer a tax incentive program on a 65,000-square foot facility that would open in the former Good Harbor Fillet site.
That means the City Council would need to sign off on a Tax Increment Financing deal, which would give Mazzetta roughly $17,000 in tax abatements over a five-year span.
But the state’s Economic Development Incentive Program dictates that a company must be built in an Economic Opportunity Area. The EOA status on some parcels at Blackburn Industrial Park expires in September 2015, and must be renewed by Feb. 28 — next Friday.