NASHVILLE – City and Tennessee state government assistance for a Japanese automotive paint company planning to build a $61 million factory in East Chattanooga is one of 25 projects skewered in a Nashville-based, free-market research group’s annual “Pork Report.”
Under the heading of “Paint the Town Red, Pay the Company Green,” the Tennessee Beacon Center’s report this year criticizes the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and the city of Chattanooga for giving land and financial assistance to recruit Nippon Paint, a Japanese paint manufacturer.
The department has awarded $1.1 million in support for the project at the former Harriet Tubman Homes site that Nippon Paint and Chattanooga officials announced in September.
The company plans to build a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing complex on about 29 acres of the 45-acre former housing development site. Nippon Paint is looking at hiring 150 workers over the next five to seven years, and Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and others are looking for a number of the jobs to go to residents of the low-income community.
The city is giving most of the vacant site between Sholar and Roanoke avenues to Nippon for the project. But Nippon will pay full city and county property taxes on the new factory, and local officials hope to raise sufficient funds through a tax increment financing plan to provide more money to local schools and have enough to plow into further development at the site.