Hickory City Council gives final OK to event area, incentive deal

The Hickory City Council gave final approval Tuesday night to construction of a permanent event area on Union Square and an economic incentive deal with a new industry for Hickory.

Council gave its final approval for a $285,976 project that will place a canopied stage in the event area and will be the home of the Hickory Farmers Market and Hickory Alive.

The money will come from the reserve parking fund. That fund is replenished from money collected from parking tickets and other traffic-related citations inside the city limits.

The City Council unanimously endorsed the project last month, but a second vote was required. The event area and the economic incentive were again unanimously approved.

The incentive package is with Punker LLC, a German-based manufacturer of fan wheels and blowers. The company is putting its US operation in Hickory. Punker officials say the Hickory plant will bring a minimum of 62 new jobs to the city with as many as 80 new jobs in four years.

Punker’s total investment at the old Turbotec facility on Twenty-fifth Street, SE, will exceed $4.5 million.

The One North Carolina Fund approved a $78,100 grant to Punker. Hickory and Catawba County will kick in up to $62,699 based on the number of jobs, the average wage paid, and the progressive creation of new hires.

The Hickory incentive would pay Punker an approximate maximum of $8,217 the first year, $8,535 the second, $13,464 the third and $14,259 the fourth year. If the new job count reaches 80 employees, Hickory would release a grant payment of $18,224 for year five.

Should the company fail to meet expectations on hiring and investment, incentive payments could be lessened or retracted. The city and county packages are alike.

The average wage at the Hickory facility is expected to exceed $35,000 a year.

2011 by the numbers

Some statistics on public services were released on Tuesday. In Hickory last year:

* Hickory Police Department dispatched 62,810 calls for service. That’s an average of 172 responses per day.

* Hickory Fire Department responded to 4,988 calls, and average of more than 13 a day.

* Hickory Public Library had 400, 574 visitors and 460,002 items were checked out.

* Parks and Recreation staff conducted 1,254 programs and activities.

* Planning and Development issued 800 zoning permits, and conducted 400 fire and safety inspections.

* Public Utilities provided 4.85 billion gallons of water to utility customers, an average of 13.3 million gallons of water per day.

* The Street Department installed more than 6,000 feet of new sidewalk, resurfaced eight lane miles of streets and installed more than 1,500 feet of new storm drainage.

* Residents and businesses in Hickory recycled more than 5.6 million pounds of glass, metal, paper and plastics.

* More than 12.8 million pounds of yard waste, brush, grass and leaves was collected within the city limits.