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The Jefferson County Commission on Thursday approved an incentive package that will bring the Daxko LLC headquarters to downtown Birmingham.
“Daxko is in a position where they are needing to expand their current office locations; they do not allow for that,” Development Adviser Jeff Traywick said. “They have a lot of work-at-home folks (and) they are looking at consolidating their work-from-home and in-office folks into a facility in downtown in District 2.”
The project will develop a building downtown that had housed Gray Construction and before that Citizens Federal Savings and Loan, founded by A.G. Gaston.
“This project would involve a capital investment of about $1.7 million and will create 88 jobs with an average wage of just under $35 an hour,” Traywick said. “Along with that, the new CEO Jeff VanDixhorn has decided to locate the full corporate headquarters functions at this location. This will give Birmingham another corporate headquarters location. They chose Birmingham for that over Chicago and Denver, so we’re extremely happy about that.”
The incentive is a job grant that will be capped at $256,000, based on the number of jobs created and the payroll that will be paid for those jobs. Commissioners present passed the measure unanimously after also discussing it in their committee meeting Tuesday.
Thursday’s commission meeting was at the Bessemer Justice Center, and Louise Alexander, the new Bessemer mayor, was in attendance. Commissioner Sheila Tyson drew a laugh from Alexander when she asked if she could call her “Mayor Lulu.”
Said Alexander: “Whatever we can do to help you all, and whatever y’all can do to help us, we want a working relationship.”
Commission President Jimmie Stephens recalled having served on the Bessemer City Council years ago with Alexander.
“I expect great things from the city of Bessemer because of the institutional knowledge that Mayor Alexander has,” he said. “It gives her an advantage (over) someone just coming in who really wouldn’t know. It puts her light years ahead of where someone else would be. Congratulations! I look forward to working with you on behalf of the county.”
Commissioner Lashunda Scales quoted her grandmother in saying that, “Love is what love does.”
“What we’re looking for is when we say true partnership, that means that we invest,” Scales said. “We can have our respective districts, but when we make a move as a commission, that means that when we talk about economic development, you (Alexander) and Jeff (Traywick) should be front and center. This is how we’re going to grow the county. The county is not going to remain the largest county in this state just because we want to. It’s going to do it because we’re intentional about what we do for every city and every unincorporated portion of this county. As it grows, the county grows.”
Among other actions, the commission:
- Approved a temporary 10% salary increase to Deputy Director of Community Services Bertram Young for taking on additional duties and responsibilities after the passing of Director of Community Services Frederick Hamilton.
- Authorized the commission president to execute a community grant agreement of $20,000 between Jefferson County and the Town of Brookside for the purpose of assisting with the purchase of a new fire engine to replace Brookside Fire Department’s Fire Truck Engine #2.
