North Texas scored another corporate headquarters last week when Torrance, Calif.-based Farmer Bros. Co. announced it will relocate just north of Fort Worth near Texas Motor Speedway.
Farmer Bros. plans to build a new $40 million, 500,000-square-foot facility east of Interstate 35W from the sports facility. The company plans to break ground by June.
“We’ve been working on something like this for over eight years and it’s great to see it finally come to fruition,” said Northlake Mayor Peter Dewing. “This is a huge catalyst to other businesses coming here.
“This is a high-wage, high-quality development that we want to attract to Northlake and we’ve worked hard over the years to make sure we control the development here and not the other way around,” Dewing said.
In February, the company said it planned to move its headquarters to either the Dallas-Fort Worth area or Oklahoma City, resulting in annualized savings of between $12 million to $15 million.
The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce had worked with the company on coming into Fort Worth, but the company chose a site literally a few feet from the city limits, said David Berzina, executive vice president/economic development at the chamber.
The total value of the relocation is about $100 million, Berzina said.
“Once again, Texas’ taxing environment and pro-business environment continues to pay dividends,” he said. Berzina said the area didn’t seek out Farmer Bros. to relocate, a consultant “brought the project to us.” He also noted that Farmer Bros. is locating within 20 miles of another company from Torrance that is relocating – Toyota USA.
Another California company is likely to announce it will relocate operations here in the next 40 days, Berzina said.
“Fort Worth joins with Northlake to welcome our new partners as we all continue to enjoy this great business environment here in Texas and D-FW,” he said.
The 103-year-old coffee company will bring about 30 executive and management jobs and about 300 new manufacturing and distribution positions with an average annual salary of $50,000, according to the company and area officials.
On April 27, Denton County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 to approve a 10-year, 60 percent abatement for business personal property taxes for Farmer Bros. and a 10-year, 60 percent real property tax abatement for the land owners. Previously, the Northlake Town Council approved a similar 10-year, 85 percent business personal property tax abatement for the company and a 10-year, 75 percent real property tax abatement for the land owners, according to Dewing.
“We are extremely pleased with the support and assistance of the Town of Northlake and Denton County along with the effort and spirit of cooperation we experienced working with the officials representing those jurisdictions,” Mike Keown, president and CEO of Farmer Bro., said in a statement. “We are working to finalize our plans for relocation and securing eligibility for incentives represents an important step in our process.”
Farmer Bros. has about 1,800 employees and annual sales of more than a half billion dollars a year for its products, including coffee, tea and culinary products. The company’s customers include more than 60,000 food and beverage outlets. The public company trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol FARM.
The first area Buc-ee’s, a large (usually more than 50,000 square feet) travel-oriented convenience store, also is expected to open south of Texas Motor Speedway.