On Dec. 15, the Springboro City Council is expected to consider the loan, similar to one used to help Victory Wholesale Group expand in Springboro, rather than move out of town.
“The motivation is keep Caesar Creek Software. It’s a business retention project, first and foremost,” Assistant City Manager Chris Pozzuto said Monday.
Ken Hoffer, founder and CEO of Caesar Creek Software, said he was looking for a place between Dayton and Cincinnati to relocate the company, which has been operating from rented space at the south end of Pioneer Boulevard since 2005. The I-75 visibility was a big selling factor.
The company, begun in Hoffer’s basement near Caesar Creek Lake, employs 33 employees, mostly software engineers.
Hoffer said he learned about the location, south of Shiver Security Systems in the Ascent office campus, after an internet search and first met on the deal on Sept. 21.
“That’s how quickly this has evolved,” Hoffer said.
Earlier this month, the city council approved sale of three acres in the office park off West Tech Boulevard, east of I-75 and south of Austin Boulevard, to Synergy for $170,841.
Hoffer said the company will invest $500,000 to $1 million in the building it will be leasing from Synergy Austin Place, the company fronting for Mills Development on the development. Synergy put the building value at $5 million.
By next August, Hoffer and Synergy expect the company to move into a new two-story, 25,000 square foot building on the land and begin the expansion required to qualify for forgiveness of the loan.
Hoffer said the building would hold up to 80 workers and long-range plans allow for another 25,000 square foot building, if the company keep growing.
The development would also qualify for tax incremental financing, enabling property taxes, otherwise going to schools and other taxing entities, to be set aside for construction of roads and other infrastructure for the development.
“They were already in Springboro,” said Jared Barnett, president and CEO of Mills and Synergy Building Systems, the developer’s general contractor. “I hope it’s mainly a good sign of small business growth in this sector.”
Mills and the city set a building-a-year goal when they completed the plan for the 13-building, 35-acre campus in 2011. Caesar Creek Software would be the second company moving in.
“We’ll certainly take ‘em faster,” Barnett said. “We do absolutely have interest in that area on a couple of fronts.”
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