Commissioner Steve Ammons could have been humming the country song ‘Dance With Who Brung You’ as he talked about Jefferson County working to hold onto businesses while striving to add new businesses to its dance card.

The subject came up after the Jefferson County Commission today approved an incentive package to keep Samuel Associated Tube Group of Birmingham from leaving the county.

Instead, the manufacturer of small-diameter electric-resistance-welded and fabricated carbon steel tubing is moving just a few miles away, remaining in the Pinson area.

“It’s great for our business retention and expansion we’re working on,” Ammons said after the meeting. “The current manufacturers and employers in the county, they mean a lot to us as well (as new businesses). When there’s expansion going on, we want to make sure that we’re a part of it. If there’s an incentive to be applied, we want to make sure that we’re there with it.”

Ammons said Business Retention Expansion (BRE) is a focus of Jefferson County and the Birmingham Business Alliance.

“How do we pay attention to the businesses that we currently have – let them know that what they’re doing is of interest to us – and still maintain our draw from other places?”

The company, which is making an investment of nearly $30 million, is moving from its current location at 1400 Red Hollow Road to 300 Fleming Road. The move allows the business to consolidate from the three “maxed out” buildings at its current location to a larger building and to add 50 employees to the current 190.

The county’s incentive package includes statutory abatements, 10-year abatements for sales and use tax during construction, and $50,000 toward infrastructure to clean up the brownfield site to which the company is moving.

The abated taxes exclude the 1 cent tax that goes toward education.

“We could have lost them to another country or another state,” Ammons said. “We hope at the beginning of next year, they’ll start the process of that (brownfield) cleanup, get an ADEM clean bill of health and be able to start the construction process. I think it’s 2022 when they’ll be complete.”

According to a Samuel release, the company is part of the Samuel Group of companies and has been in Jefferson County since 1973. Samuel Associated Tube Group of Birmingham converts carbon steel coil into high quality mechanical or structural tubing. The company offers precision cutting and fabrication of components and welded subassemblies. It also offers robotic MIG and manual welding as desired.