Florence County Council to reveal ‘Project JLL,’ hold final vote on incentives

Florence County Council is scheduled to take its final votes Thursday on incentives for “Project JLL” and plans to reveal the company behind the $28 million investment anticipated to bring 750 jobs to the area.

Council chairman Rusty Smith said he’ll disclose the company’s name just before public hearings on Project JLL are held Thursday morning.

County documents describe Project JLL as “a Massachusetts corporation whose identity has been disclosed to County Council.”

“It’s going to be big,” Smith said.

The company is another blue-chip industry that will join “the Florence County family of commerce,” he said.

“In the economy we’ve experienced for the last seven or eight years, who would question bringing major jobs into the community? That’s the way I look at it,” Smith said ahead of the public hearing.

The economic development project comes on the heels of H.J. Heinz Co.’s announcement that it will create 350 jobs at a new Florence County plant. The initial investment in the county will be $105 million, according to county documents.

The council is scheduled to hold public hearings this morning on ordinances that would amend an agreement for a multicounty industrial park between Florence and Williamsburg counties and institute a fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreement for the project.

County officials haven’t revealed where Project JLL would locate within the county.

The council also is scheduled to vote this morning on third and final readings of the ordinances, which will be amended with the company’s name once it is revealed, County Administrator Richard Starks said.

The council also will vote on a resolution establishing the company’s inducement and millage rate.

Training for the company’s employees will be provided by readySC, a division of the S.C. Technical College System, according to a memorandum of understanding included in the resolution.

Clients of readySC include DuPont, Honda, GE, BMW and Michelin, according to the program’s Web site, http://www.cattsc.com.

The program, formed in 1961, offers customized training at little or no cost to “new and expanding” businesses and industries in South Carolina, the Web site states.

To qualify, a company must project that it will create permanent jobs in a number large enough for the training to be cost efficient. It also must offer competitive wages and health insurance for its employees.