Thomas Breen photos
Industrial Flow Solutions’s newly acquired Fair Haven site. Below: Director of Operations Matt Blackwell promises capital investment.
An industrial pump manufacturer plans to make at least $385,000 in capital improvements and hire 14 new employees at its recently acquired Fair Haven factory in exchange for the city giving up its right to take back a 1.84-acre undeveloped parking lot on the site.
Industrial Flow Solutions Director of Operations Matt Blackwell and city Deputy Economic Development Director Steve Fontana pitched that proposed deal to the Community Development Committee during its most recent regular monthly meeting in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall.
The committee alders unanimously recommended that the full Board of Alders approve the proposed deal regarding land that the city once owned, and could take back under public ownership, on the grounds of the former Radiall factory site on John Murphy Drive. IFS purchased the former factory for $3.2 million earlier this year.
IFS, a Chicago-based industrial company, is looking to consolidate its Old Saybrook and Monroe offices, along with several dozen existing employees and at least 14 new employees, at the Fair Haven site.
Blackwell and Fontana: This is about growing.
Fontana explained that the 1.84-acre John Murphy Drive parcel in question was sold by the city to a company called Applied Engineering Products, Inc. back in 2000 as part of a land disposition agreement (LDA).
At that time, the city required Applied Engineering Products to convert that land into a surface parking lot within 18 months. Applied Engineering never did that work. Nor did its successor, Radiall.
Per the terms of the 2000 LDA, the city now has the right to take back that parcel that was never developed into a parking lot.
Instead, Fontana said, the city is now proposing to relinquish its right to take back this undeveloped property in exchange for a commitment from the site’s new owner, IFS, to invest at least $385,000 in real or personal property investments over the next three years into the three John Murphy Drive parcels. Those investments could take the form of anything from building additions to new equipment.
“Once we’re satisfied that IFS has met that investment threshold,” Fontana said, “we will release the right to that parcel.”
He said the proposed land deal would also have the pump manufacturer committee partner with the Commission on Equal Opportunities and the city’s Small Contractor Development Program on construction hiring and small business contracting; to work with the city to adjust its property fence lines to accommodate the adjacent Mill River Trail and to assist with that trail’s maintenance; and to partner with New Haven Works to hire local candidates for the 14 new jobs it anticipates creating at the site over the next four years.
Alders Douglass and Cupo: What kind of pumps? What kind of work?
“What’s the purpose of the pumps” that IFS builds? Dwight Alder and Committee Vice-Chair Frank Douglass asked. And what kinds of work will be taking place at this Fair Haven site?
Blackwell responded that IFS manufactures, sells, and services electrical submersible pumps. These pumps are used in the building trades, by utility companies, in mining, and for a variety of other primarily industrial uses.
The pumps service breweries by pumping 250-degree water used to clean out large tanks, he said. They’re also used at waste water treatment plants and chicken plants.
“What kind of environmental impacts will there be from the production of these pumps?” Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo asked.
Blackwell said that there won’t be any actual machining work taking place at the Fair Haven site. “It’s essentially assembling,” he said. There will be some equipment used to test the pumps, he said. But everything will be done inside the premises, and there will no exhaust.
How specialized will this work be? Cupo asked.
“We’re growing by leaps and bounds,” Blackwell said. So there are lots of different job opportunities at their newly acquired factory site. He said 14 new hires is a conservative number. The jobs themselves will range from building and technical maintenance and general laborers to engineers and machinists.In addition working with New Haven Works for the hires, he said, the company will also provide on-site job training.
“The idea is growth in taxes and growth in jobs,” Fontana said about the proposed deal.