Just as was revealed by Curmudgeon in one of last night's Weber County Forum comments sections, this morning's Standard Examiner's hard-copy edition has the full story (under the clever front-page banner headline, "Ogden lands Swiss Company") on the prospective arrival of Jet Aviation, the Swiss aircraft company which is currently negotiating to lease 70,000 square feet of space in Mel Kemp's Ogden-Hinkley Airport facility. We incorporate Ace Reporter Schwebke's lead paragraphs below:
OGDEN — An international aviation company has signed a letter of intent with Kemp Development Inc. to establish a maintenance and repair facility and a fixed based operation at Ogden-Hinckley Airport.We'll chalk this up as great news for Ogden City, and especially for Mel Kemp, who's been stuck with vacant rental space since mid-winter, when Adam Aircraft, Kemp's predecessor aircraft manufacturer tenant, executed a fatal financial "nose dive."
Jet Aviation, based in Zurich, Switzerland, expects to begin operations at the airport in the fall, said Bryce Gibby, business development director for Kemp.
“They are the premier corporate jet provider in the world,” Gibby said Wednesday. “They are global and none is better.”
Dave Harmer, Ogden’s community and economic development director, said Jet Aviation would help Ogden toward its goal of becoming a hub for the aircraft industry.
“This is fantastic,” he said. “Jet Aviation is a major player.”
The company plans to employ up to 200 workers at its Ogden facility in the next two years.
Negotiations are ongoing to finalize a contract between Kemp and Jet Aviation, Gibby said.
Contract details are still reportedly "up in the air," including the inevitable taxpayer subsidies, which will apparently be necessary to lure this big player to "drop its landing gear," begin its "final approach," "touch down" on the Hinkley Field runway and "taxi" into Kemp's empty hangar:
The city is in discussions with Jet Aviation to provide possible tax increment financing, said [Ogden Community and Economic Development Director Dave] Harmer. Jet Aviation also plans to apply for undisclosed financial incentives from the state, he said.We're pressed for time this morning; so we'll skip our usual microanalysis. Suffice it to say however, we don't think Jet Aviation is a "fly by night."
Perhaps a few of our gentle readers would care to "fill in the blanks" with their own clever comments.
16 comments:
How much is Ogden paying this new company to come to Ogden and how long before they go bankrupt?
realistic:
Well, Realistic, I don't see much point in assuming, as you seem to be, that every company drawn to Ogden must necessarily be tottering on on the brink of bankruptcy. From the much fuller story in this morning's paper on Jet Aviation, it seems to be a substantial operation, not a start-up. [Mortality rate for start-up operations is much much higher than for established businesses generally speaking.]
As for you other questions... what is Ogden paying them to come here... the morning's story does indicate the company is in negotiations with the city over a tax-increment incentive, and with the state for a straight state subsidy. On the former, tax increment incentives can be effective if they are carefully targeted and not cast around wantonly, chasing every will-o-the-wisp possibility of drawing new business. We'll have to wait and see what the final package offered looks like. Not wise to assume it will be a bad deal for Ogden. Also not wise, or accurate, to claim that "it won't cost the city anything." It will. The question is, will the tax increment incentive be a wise allocation of the city's anticipated tax revenues from the company's arrival. And to make that judgment, we need more information than we have at the moment.
The facility is there, at the airport, not being used at the moment. Jet Aviation's coming in seems to me [absent further information to the contrary] very good news for Ogden.
"fill in the blanks"? How about a fact check?
http://www.jetaviation.com//index.php/latestnews/1589
realistic - get "real" and check out the company's website before you ask a question. Curmudgeon is correct in thinking Jet Aviation isn't a start-up. It's a seasoned company of the aviation industry.
The intent of Jet Aviation is to open an MRO and FBO in Ogden. These are two very good business opportunities because of Ogden's proximity to the west coast.
Awwww, come on guys, it's so simple. Maybe you need a refresher course. It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads, and I'll need about ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State.
curmudgeon,
Nice of you to edit my post, since there was more to it that what you have left here. If I remember correctly I posted under the headline Ogden City Saves 2.5 million in Bond interest payments and there were some other comments in regards to the Soloman Center. Is is your policy to edit posts and place them where you want them? I hope not, because that would put you in the same boat as Godfrey, only let people see what you want them to see. Of course you only look at one part of the my post that you did leave in and that was that you assume that I'm assuming that every company drawn to Ogden is going to go bankrupt. That was a play on Adam's Aircraft. The point of the post was to ask how much money is Ogden paying this company to relocate to Ogden? Everyone isn't a stupid as you portray them to be.
Realistic:
I didn't edit your post. I don't have access to posts to edit them. I imagine the Blogmeister took the part of your earlier post that dealt with the airport news and moved it up under the new airport thread so people would see it in connection with that thread. But you'll have to ask him. I didn't edit it.
Nor, just for the record, did I suggest you were [your term, not mine] "stupid." Greeting news of a new company coming in to Ogden airport by wondering when they were going to go belly up seemed unreasonably pessimistic to me, that's all. Sometimes the news is good --- even when it comes from the Mayor's development team.
So Ogden has landed another teensy company to come to the airport, that they will subsidize, to replace the last one they subsidized that went broke, so there will be something for the subsidized Mel Kemp to do.
All for 200 jobs. Wow. The real news is the money the city throws at these people for these sorts of small potatoes.
And all the businesses and citizens you never read about in the paper get to pay for all of this nonsense.
Yeah, good news. Right.
I'm surprised Dave Harmer doesn't claim credit for all the snow cone stands that appear in the summer, and offer to give them tax money too.
Danny:
Well, 200 employees doesn't count on my scale as "another teensy company." Whether the tax incentives make sense is another question we can't really answer until we know the size and duration of them.
States/cities competing for businesses via tax incentives and subsidies rarely works out, in the end, to the advantage of the states/cities involved because all the other states/cities are in the bidding game as well so that in the long run, the businesses sought gain a great deal, the municipalities and states do not. But so long as they're all out there bidding, for one city alone, or one state alone, to opt out would constitute a kind of unilateral disarmament, the argument goes. It is not, on its face, a trivial argument.
And, if moderate and of limited duration, incentives can end up increasing both city/state revenues and jobs. As usual, the devil is in the details, and we don't know the details on this pending incentives package yet.
Still, I'm hard put to see how a company bringing 200 jobs ranks as "teensy" or that the arrival of those jobs here is not good news. Even if Harmer and Company did the recruiting.
Curm, I see through your assumption that it's now expected that Harmer and team's real job is to recruit tennents for all lying little matty's buddies that own properties with vacancies. Is it the city's responsibility to insure that he kepps his investment solvent? How many million has he recieved all ready?
Is Harmer also obligated to fill the rest of the Can Building for Brown and Johnson? Where does it end?
"Nice of you to edit my post, since there was more to it that what you have left here."
Thanks for the heads-up, realistic. I did repost a portion of your yesterday's comment under today's new article, which I did indeed also edit and move for topicality to fit this morning's Jet Aviation topic.
I did this on the fly, prior to departing to a day's worth of personal business meetings in SLC early this morning. In the process of doing this I unfortunately deleted your earlier post, which has now been restored under the original article.
Me bad. Me Human.
Sorry.
Bill:
Seems to me the Mayor's office... any mayor's office... has as one of its jobs being on the look out for new businesses interested in coming to their city, and in particular, which certainly includes businesses that might make particular use of city owned-facilities, like the airport. I see nothing wrong in that.
Curm, the 3-4 million the city gave Kemp has no ownership attached, though that the lion share of the building costs. Buy virtue of what they did for Kemp two businesses closed their doors, this new one intends to fill that void. The void created buy helping Kemp kill the compitition. I should also point out that Kemps property is not ownwd by the City, it's south of the airport, detatched from all other operations. Ignorrance is bliss, most folks haven't even been out there for a look. Nice new restaurant, best in Roy.
Fyi, for those wondering why the visionary devining forehead has produced no positive results despite it's wide spread notoriety, we must point out that it's a vintage 1970 model. This was a very bad year for metaphysical inventions, many malfunctions are the by product of acne during the critical formative years. Consumer reports has gone on record with the prognosis for no improvement over time, much worse, acne can cause degenerative affects. This thing will continue its accellerated growth while becoming less and less reliable untill the bearer suffers a massive collapse from constant dillutions.
Community service bulletin: John Patterson, Through mental telepathy, has asked me to forward this request to any readers that might spend their Labor Day weekend purusing garage/yard sales, to be on the lookout for any used crystal balls.
Due to the malfunctions in the metaphysical visionary enlarging forehead 1970 edition, model # lying little matty 01, the city administration is in critical need of a back-up. According to Patterson, it's urgent, there's alot of devious projects on the table and only 3 1/2 years to sneak them thru.
Bill:
You're arguing another issue --- whether the city should have made the arrangements it did with Kemp. I won't argue with you that that was another instance of Godfrey cronyism. The law suits have I think been settled.
So, Kemp is there, Adams went belly up. So I have no problem with the administration being on the scout for businesses to move in, create jobs, generate tax revenues, and increase the use of the Ogden airport [which is city owned]. A repair facility there of the sort the paper described would necessarily increase landing traffic at Ogden-Hinkley, and thus increase landing fee revenues.
Granting that getting Kemp in there in the first place was a fast shuffle, the city and rate payers have zero to gain from the facilities there remaining empty and from fewer landings happening at Ogden-Hinkley rather than more.
Oh Curm, it's just nice to hear you stating that lying little matty is a devious nit, that will morph into a louse of epic proportions, with an everelongating nasal orifice and enlarging forehead equipted with faulty visionary devining hardware.
Bill:
BTW, Mr. Harmer and the Mayor's Crack Development Team really haven't time just now to work yard sales looking for crystal balls. They're still hunting for the 275 city owned parking spaces they promised to the Gondola View Hotel and then misplaced.
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