A Chinese company is interested in building its U.S. headquarters in Effingham County in a $50 million manufacturing project that would create 25 to 50 jobs.
Leon Zipperer, Rincon’s board member for the county’s Industrial Development Authority, described “Project Stella” to Rincon City Council members at their Monday night meeting.
Zipperer said the company makes additives that are used in common household products.
Phosphates that would come through the Port of Savannah would be used to make food-grade additives that go in products such as toothpaste, said John Henry, CEO of the IDA. The company has 13 product lines, some of which are sold to Proctor and Gamble.
He quoted company officials as saying if you bathe, wash clothes or brush your teeth, then you’re using their products.
Zipperer said the company is interested in the 83-acre Treutlen Site in the county’s industrial park at Ga. 21 and Ebenezer Road.
Early negotiations call for the company to pay $15,000 an acre for the land, which would add up to $1.2 million, Zipperer said.
Henry and IDA Chairman Dennis Webb traveled to China last month to visit the company’s facilities. Henry said at the time that the IDA has been working on the project since last fall.
Zipperer said money generated by the Effingham plant would be re-invested in Effingham instead of going overseas.
Meanwhile, Zipperer said an economic impact analysis indicates the 1,000 jobs that are to be created by Medient Studios would create a payroll of more than $37 million, “once it gets going.”
Medient has said it plans a $90 million filmmaking and entertainment complex on the IDA’s 1,500 acres at Interstate 16 and Old River Road.
He said financing has been worked out for Medient and that board member Chap Bennett, a vice president at The Coastal Bank, is “happy with the financing.”
Zipperer said the Medient and China deals are the only Effingham IDA projects to come to fruition since the Efacec transformer plant was built on Ga. 21 north of Rincon.