A Silicon Valley manufacturer is considering a 500,000-square-foot factory on San Antonio’s South Side. The proposed project would bring in nearly 3,000 jobs.
Industrial Electrical Manufacturing, which builds equipment like power panels and switchboards, wants to build a new campus. On Tuesday, Bexar County commissioners approved negotiations for tax incentives to try to lure the company to a site at Brooks.
“What we are considering is developing a campus, potentially in the San Antonio area,” said Mark Harris, the company’s COO, in a presentation to commissioners.
IEM was founded 75 years ago, Harris said, and has offices and facilities in Canada and the United States. That includes manufacturing sites in Jacksonville, Vancouver and at its headquarters in Fremont, California.
“The easy way for me to explain that is we basically produce all the equipment that takes electricity from the grid and delivers it to the final point of use,” Harris said.
Those parts are in high demand and IEM has added roughly 1,000 workers per year globally, Harris said. It works with customers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Chevron, Google and Toyota.
Now, that expansion could come to San Antonio. IEM would hire 2,960 workers across two phases of development — a 500,000-square-foot facility to be built by 2028 and another to be completed by 2030.
Workers would be paid at least $18.27 an hour, or $53,073 a year, said Director of Bexar County Economic Development Deborah Carter. IEM projects its investment to be $200 million — with $120 million spent on property and $80 million spent on labor.
To get there, though, the company is asking for tax incentives from Bexar County.
“My primary reason for being here today is obviously to ask for consideration to negotiate the appropriate tax incentives, workforce training grants and those things that are related that will help us make our final decision on where we locate,” Harris said.
County commissioners voted to let county staff begin negotiations for an incentive package, a 10-year, 70% tax abatement based on IEM’s projected investment into labor. Carter estimated that incentive to be worth more than $1.5 million.
The incentives will require an exception from Bexar County’s guidelines, Carter added.
Bexar County Economic Development normally requires all jobs at a prospective company to pay more than $20.18 an hour, Carter said, higher than IEM’s proposed $18.27 hourly rate.
IEM would pay 90% of its employees more than $21.34 an hour, Carter said.
The median hourly wage in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area is $22.12, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
Commissioners were positive about the investment, welcoming the company to San Antonio and said the county would help with job fairs and other employee pipelines.
“Look forward to working with you, let’s get that thing built,” said Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai.
If San Antonio officials successfully land IEM’s campus, it could be as large as JCB’s one-million-square-foot Southside factory and employ even more workers.
