Schneider Electric seeks to move ahead with Missouri build-up
Schneider Electric is planning a $73.6 million expansion at their facility on Route B in north Columbia and is seeking a property tax abatement from local taxing entities. The Columbia Public Schools Board of Education voted in favor of granting the abatement at its meeting January 13.
The company plans to construct a 58,000 square-foot addition to its existing structure. It would relocate material storage to the new space and redeploy existing space to increase capacity for new product offerings. The new building is expected to cost about $19.8 million and new equipment about $53.8 million.
In its application for the tax abatement, Schneider Electric says it would expand its workforce by an additional 241 full-time-equivalent employees at an average wage of $24.41 per hour. The company currently employs about 427 FTE’s with an average annual earnings of $54,839.
The 50% tax abatement would lower the company’s property taxes over the next 10 years from a forecast $3.6 million to $1.8 million.
Most of the $1.8 million – about $1.5 million – goes to the school district. Other entities the collect property taxes include the City of Columbia, Boone County, Boone County Family Resources, the Daniel Boone Regional Library and the state of Missouri.
Schneider Electric representatives are working with Columbia’s Regional Economic Development Inc. (REDI) to shepherd the tax abatements through local government. Boone County administers a state incentive program that achieves the abatement through the issuance of bonds under Chapter 100 of a state statute.
The three-member county commission will ultimately have to approve the tax abatement. The Chapter 100 program was first used in Boone County in 2006 to help land ABC Labs, now Europhins Scientific. Under Chapter 100, a city or county uses its own tax-exempt status to purchase, and then own, real property, construction materials and tangible personal property and then leases it back to the company in order to provide a lower cost of business for a company locating or expanding in its community.
The city utilized the Chapter 100 program to help Kraft Heinz in 2015 and 2024, Dana Light Axle in 2016, Aurora Organic Dairy in 2017, American Outdoor Brands in 2017, Swift Foods in 2021 and EquipmentShare in 2022.
Schneider Electric is based in Europe and does business throughout the world. In Columbia, it manufactures a variety of industrial electric components like circuit breakers, contactors and relays.