An agreement approved recently clears the way for development of another distribution center in Lawton’s Airport Industrial Park.
The City Council approved the pact recently, along with the Lawton Economic Development Authority, the Lawton Fort Sill Economic Development Corporation, and Fisher59 Properties. Fisher59 will spend $16 million to construct a 100,000 square-foot beer distribution warehouse on a 15.7acre parcel north of the 72,000 square-foot Pepsi distribution center in the industrial park. Fisher59 will pay the LEDC $260,000 for its site, and will spend an estimated $1.6 million for relocation of a sewer line, extension of a 12-inch water line, and extension of Gilbert Gibson Road to the north side of the project.
The agreement provides that Fisher59 will be reimbursed for the offsite improvements by the City of Lawton from its 2019 Capital Improvements Program funds. Richard Rogalski, executive director of the Lawton Economic Development Authority, told Southwest Ledger that the LEDC also will contribute its net proceeds from the land sale toward the cost of those public improvements.
The Fisher59 project is located within a tax increment finance district, and over a period of several years a portion of those taxes will be used to repay the City of Lawton and the LEDC for their financial outlays on the Fisher59 project.
The new facility will consolidate operations that are in two locations in Lawton.
The company will retain 60 employees currently on its payroll and will add 30 more over the next 10 years, at an average “present-day salary” of $48,000, city officials reported.
Previously the City Council was told that the average salary for those 90 employees would be $60,000, but subsequently Fisher59 “requested a reduction … during the process of drafting this agreement.”
The Fisher59 TIF district is part of the “STEDI Project Plan.” The Skills Training, Education, Development and Investment Project Plan “provides necessary support to implement the City of Lawton’s economic development objectives for supporting new and expanded non-retail business in the City’s Industrial Parks,” a municipal document explains.