GJ Favors Incentive Request for Growing Firm

Daily Sentinel
January 16, 2007
By Mike Wiggins

A Grand Junction company that makes ski lifts and other cable transportation systems is in line to receive a $300,000 grant from the city to help it expand.

The Grand Junction City Council on Monday night tentatively approved a request from the Grand Junction Economic Partnership to provide funding to Leitner-Poma of America as part of a partnership with other governmental entities that could net the firm $900,000. The council is expected to formally sign off on the request during its regular meeting Wednesday night.

The money from the city would place infrastructure at Bookcliff Technology Park near Walker Field Airport, where Leitner-Poma plans to build a new 100,000 square-foot facility. The company is currently located at Foresight Park on Patterson Road.

GJEP officials said they have been working over the last year with Leitner-Poma, which also has offices in Vermont, Canada and France, to expand its operation in Grand Junction.

The company which was established in Grand Junction in 1981 and employees 75 people plans to hire an additional 100 employees in the next five years at an average annual wage of $43,680. The expansion will also include the relocation of Prinoth LLC, a Canadian company recently purchased by Leitner-Poma that makes snow grooming equipment, to Grand Junction.

GJEP President Ann Driggers said the project enhances the manufacturing sector in the Grand Valley and retains and adds much-needed high paying jobs.

"Retaining and creating quality primary jobs is critical to ensuring we have a strong and diverse economy for the future," Driggers wrote in a letter to the council.

Council members applauded the effort to help an existing local business. "This is a great project. It is a wonderful company. We ought to do this every chance we get," Councilman, Jim Spehar said.

Leitner-Poma has seen its sales increase nearly 150 percent from 2003 to 2006, with roughly 90 percent of those sales generating from its Grand Junction facility. The company accounts for 50 percent of the worldwide market for ski lifts, according to GJEP.

Leitner-Poma's expansion will mean a new capital investment of $12.3 million, a $1.5 million boost in public revenue for the city and estimated $63 million impact to the Grand Junction economy and $ 107 million impact to Mesa County economy, according to GJEP.

In addition to the $300,000 from the city, GJEP has received $300,000 from the Colorado Economic Development Commission and will request $300,000 from Mesa County on Wednesday. Industrial Development Inc. has agreed to provide the land to Leitner-Poma at no cost.

Driggers said the incentive will require the creation of new jobs, the payment of the salaries promised by Leitner-Poma and the construction of the new facility.

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