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Incentives bring jobs to Elmira

By G. JEFFREY AARON
Star-Gazette
May 9, 2000

Incentives worth $2.5 million helped persuade Taylor Corp. to expand its Elmira facility at the former Artistic Plaza.

Taylor Corp., the Minnesota-based company that purchased Artistic Direct Inc. last October, is expected to add 300 new jobs to its phone and mail-order processing center at Artistic Plaza on Lake Road in Elmira.

The Northeast Data Center, as the telephone, mail order and service center is known, employs 50 workers. However, the number of employees could increase by 300 within the next three years, economic development officials said Monday at a Chemung County Industrial Development Agency meeting.

The call center receives orders by mail, fax, or telephone. It transmits that information to Taylor’s production facilities around the country. Taylor is a direct-mail merchandiser that sells items such as personalized coffee mugs, mouse pads and stationery and personal checks.

The 50 employees now working at the center kept their jobs after Taylor bought artistic Direct and transferred manufacturing operations to sites in Idaho and Colorado.

According to the financial package prepared by the Empire State Development Corp., New York state will provide Taylor with a $300,000 grant to train new workers and an additional $100,000 to help upgrade equipment at the center.

Taylor will receive the training funds over a three-year period, and each annual allotment will depend on the number of workers hired the previous year, said George Miner, president of the development agency Southern Tier Economic Growth, known as STEG.

As an incentive to hire workers in the area who have lost their jobs because of plant closings or layoffs. Taylor will receive $3,000 in federal funds for each dislocated worker it hires. Those funds will be administered through Chemung-Schuyler-Steuben Workforce Development.

Chemung County’s Industrial Development Agency and STEG will jointly provide Taylor with a $50,000 grant to ensure that the employment levels at the center stay constant.

The company also is eligible for $2.1 million in Economic Development Zone wage tax and will receive a $150,000 loan from the city of Elmira. The city loan is not included in the state’s incentive package but will be used to upgrade the call center’s equipment.

Miner said Taylor was also looking at sites in Iowa, Indiana and Idaho as possible call center locations. The company operates call centers in Idaho, Maryland and Iowa.

"They wanted to locate in Elmira because they liked the labor force, so we spent about a month negotiating the locations all over the country and we had to figure out the right person at Taylor to talk to and they had to understand how state money worked," he said.

Taylor is headquartered in North Mankato, Minn., and employs more than 10,000 workers in 75 companies located throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

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