Business View Magazine | October 2020

319 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 C I BOLO, TEXAS $400-million, 500,000-sq.-ft. facility is currently under construction, and the new plant is expected to begin production in September 2021, bringing 900 jobs to the region by the end of 2023. “It was a very competitive process,” Lee recounts. “We found out, afterward, that there were over 90 locations throughout the entire United States that were being considered. We worked with our regional partners, such as the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation and the Guadalupe Valley Development Corporation. One of the reasons why Cibolo was attractive was purely geography – they wanted to be close enough to the Toyota plant to be able to send their finished materials there, but they wanted to be far enough away so that they weren’t competing for the same resources and labor pool.” “Early on, we brought in Workforce Solutions Alamo, which is the workforce development board for our area,” Lee continues. “They came to the initial meetings and talked to the AW Texas team about what sort of workforce training there could be, and any grants that the state could add for workforce training. And that was a big thing for them.” Regarding financial incentives, both the city and county leaders approved an economic development incentive package for AW Texas that included tax abatements, as well as a Chapter 380 Economic Development Agreement. The 20-year agreement with the City of Cibolo is valued at $9.6 million while the county’s agreement is worth $13 million. The project is expected to bring a $36-million payroll to Cibolo and deliver an annual net benefit of $3.7 million to the city and $4.5 million to the county in sales and property taxes. “We also did some improvements to the area,” Lee adds. “We did a $5-million bond project to help improve some drainage and also road