-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
White Transfer and Storage Co. has announced plans for a $2 million expansion at its location west of Fort Dodge on old Highway 20. Webster County has offered seven years of tax increment rebates to enable the project. The company was established over 100 years ago and currently has 120,000 square feet in Webster County.

White Transfer has plans to build a $2 million, 50,000-square-foot expansion of its Fort Dodge facility.

The Webster County Board Supervisors approved tax rebates to help enable the project at its regular meeting Tuesday morning.

“We’ve been working with Denny Crimmins, with Crimmins Investment and White Transfer to create an expansion to their existing facility which has been in operation for over 100 years in Fort Dodge,” said Kelly Halsted, economic development director of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance. “They’re a great asset to our community and our county.”

The company had several choices of where it could build this expansion, Halsted said, including its current operations in Webster City, Clarion, Forest City and Algona.

“We are excited to support the growth of a long-established company in Webster County which not only employs its own, but supports the employment of several hundred other employees in the region as well as adds value to our local companies,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Campbell.

The company plans to spend $2 million or more, and build a 50,000-square-foot building with the potential to expand an additional 100,000 square feet.

It currently has more than 120,000 square feet in Webster County.

As a third party logistics and distribution provider, White Transfer supports several global companies in the region.

Webster County has agreed to provide a rebate of the incremental tax — that is, the amount the tax increases due to the new expansion — for seven years. However, this rebate will be spread out over 10 years, which means the county will see some revenue immediately.

For instance, imagine an expansion which resulted in $10 of new taxes. In this example, seven years of taxes would be $70. The county would give back $7 each year, and keep $3, for 10 years.

“So the county is receiving income from the project immediately rather than waiting until the end of the rebate period,” Plautz said.

The expansion will meet a real need in the area, said Dennis Plautz, Growth Alliance chief executive officer .

“They will be building to handle additional warehousing needs, ancillary to a lot of the development that is going on in the region,” Plautz said. “We have a need for additional warehousing in this region.

“This is exactly the type of economic spin-off we like to see when our regional companies grow. It provides our service providers additional opportunity for growth. It is important to have companies like White Transfer in our economy to partner with and assist in the attraction of other companies.”

Other companies coming in require places like White Transfer, said Jim Kesterson, representing Crimmins Investment.

“This is a business that takes care of other businesses,” Kesterson said. “These other plants that are locating here, they don’t necessarily have all the storage they need, and many of these plants don’t want to invest their money into storage facilities; they want to invest in research and development and other things that makes their company money.”

Numerous companies have announced plans to build or expand in the area, including a $51 million expansion project at CJ Bio America to add an additional product line, and a massive $300 million Prestage Foods of Iowa pork plant being constructed near Eagle Grove.

Which specific companies work with White Transfer is not public information.

However, “they do provide warehousing for several local companies,” Kesterson said. “I’m sure that would include companies that will be doing business with Prestage.”

The county’s tax incentive, and the favorable location, were the top reasons Crimmins chose to invest in this location, he said.

“White Transfer appreciates the endorsement of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance as well as the facilitation with the Webster County Supervisors in our expansion project,” said White Transfer President Denny Crimmins. “The financial support of the Webster County Supervisors made us able to initiate our project sooner than we had planned, and we want to thank them for their assistance.”