A company that’s more than 100 years old could be a step closer to calling Jefferson County home after Thursday’s Jefferson County Commission meeting in Bessemer.

The commission in Tuesday’s committee meeting approved hearing a resolution Thursday that would give a 10-year property tax abatement to ITU AbsorbTech, a supplier of environmentally friendly industrial absorbents, towels, mats, garments and other launderable textiles.

“The company was founded in 1908 … 100-plus years ago in Wisconsin,” said Othell Phillips, executive director of the Jefferson County Economic and Industrial Development Authority. “The company was looking for sites in the Southeast and we happened to win. Well, we got narrowed down to one of the sites that they’re looking at.”
Phillips said the company was looking at the Birmingham area and was shown a spot in JCEIDA’s JeffMet McCalla site. As the company was doing its due diligence, costs for the project came in high.

“They had not built a plant since or post-COVID, so their cost was about 30% higher than they anticipated,” the executive director said. “We were trying to look for ways to make the deal happen and they were trying to (find) ways to offset some of that cost.”

The tax abatement request being considered Thursday excludes taxes that go toward education.

Jefferson County Economic Development Adviser Jeff Traywick said the company would be expected to bring the county an estimated $522,065 in revenue to the general fund and nearly $1.5 million to the county’s education fund.

Thursday’s agenda also includes the three-year renewal of an agreement with Granicus to provide livestreaming of county meetings. The company is adding closed captioning to its offering.

If commissioners agree, the county will pay $75,671.49 the first year, $63,669.64 the second and $70,036.59 the third.