STURGIS – A Sturgis business is receiving an Industrial Facilities Exemption Certificate to allow them to expand into a new area.

Wednesday night the Sturgis City Commission was presented with an IFEC request from Zurcher Tire in partnership with Boland's Best One Tire.

Cathy Knapp of Southwest Michigan First says that Boland and Zurcher are partnering to build a distribution facility north of Sturgis on Dresser Drive. It will be 100,000 square feet.

Knapp says getting IFEC's for warehouses is something relatively new for Michigan. In the past the State did not have support for these kinds of tax abatements, so border counties were losing businesses to Indiana.

Knapp says her predecessor, Dave Allen asked for an incentive to be developed to allow Commissions to provide IFEC's for warehousing projects.

Boland says they will be investing $3.7 million into the facility. They will retain ten jobs and create ten new jobs. He says they want to focus not only on tires for passenger vehicles, but also for the agricultural industry.

The Commission approved the twelve year abatement by a unanimous vote.