STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — A $25 million dollar dental insurance company expansion may be coming to Stevens Point.
Delta Dental of Wisconsin is planning a corporate headquarters expansion and one site option for the expansion is in Stevens Point. The expansion would be a 100,000 feet building in the Portage County Business Park that would accommodate over 400 employees.
Delta Dental is also considering potential locations for the expansion in Plover as well. Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza says he’d like to see Delta Dental of Wisconsin stay in Point where they began.
“What’s usually good for Plover is good for Point. What’s good for Point is usually good for Plover and that includes Whiting, Parkridge, Hull, Stockton, all of our neighbors. We are putting our best foot forward to try and keep Delta Dental. Who have been in Stevens Point for a very long time as one of our major employers and a fabulous employer at that. We’d like to see them stay in the City of Stevens Point.”
There are several benefits for both the city and Delta Dental if they decide to build at the Business Park. Wiza describes some of those benefits as, “It is an undeveloped site so they would have the ability to create their own footprint. They wouldn’t have to work within constraints of other neighboring buildings things like that. And it would be a better highway exposure to Delta Dental.”
A major part of the agreement is the financial incentive Delta would get from building in a TIF district. Delta would acquire the site, spend $25 million to build the headquarters, and would need to complete construction within 24 months.
But the city would need to provide an annual development incentive of 50% to Delta for the remaining years of the 9th TIF district. Which would be in a pay as you go agreement and last until the TIF closes in 2034.
Wiza explains how the incentive in the TIF district would work with this project. “With financial incentives, in a TID district, you take a base value. Anything that is created above that is called an increment. So let’s say they create a $1,000 in brand new taxes. We have the ability to return some of those in the form of incentives, whatever that might take. This one is more of a cash incentive to help with construction costs.”
The finance committee approved the potential development agreement by a vote of 4-1. Alderperson Shaun Morrow was the lone no vote on the agreement. He had concerns that Delta Dental did not need the financial incentive given with a TIF district as they are a multi-million dollar firm.
The agreement now moves onto the city council for their approval on May 20th. If Delta Dental decides to build the headquarters expansion in Stevens Point, the city expects construction would begin in the spring of 2020.
