FeedsCanton selling land in bid to keep jobs
Canton officials say they are doing what they can to save 700 “well-paying” jobs in the township.
“Welcome to the new day in Michigan,” said Supervisor Tom Yack.
The Canton Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday night to sell 61 acres of land it owns on Sheldon Road south of Michigan Avenue to Poco, Inc.
The $550,000 transaction is contingent on another sale: Poco, a supplier of construction safety equipment, is willing to sell 8 acres of property on Van Born Road to Miesel-Sysco Food Services, the third-largest township employer.
Miesel-Sysco, one of several subsidiaries of food distributor Sysco Corp., wants to expand operations. To do that, it needs to add 90,000 square feet to the existing 332,000 square-foot facility or build anew in another state.
It isn’t difficult to determine which option the township prefers. Yack said Sysco employs more than 700 people, with an average worker salary of $55,000 per year.
Yack said a consultant for Sysco gave strong indications that the company could move the location to business-friendly Indiana or Ohio.
“He really started to talk about what Ohio has to offer, what Indiana has to offer, and it’s scary. They build a facility in northern Indiana, 5 million square feet, and pay no property tax at all for a number of years,” he said.
The township sale would allow Poco to move and accommodate a Sysco expansion.
The 61-acre site has limitations that prevent the township from using it as originally planned—a site for a municipal services building. Only 25 acres of the property can be built upon due to forested wetlands and creeks that traverse the site.
It fits the criteria of Poco, though, which has been in Canton since 1970 and plans to begin manufacturing more of the safety equipment on which they own patents.
“They’re the orange-barrel people,” said Yack.
Neither Poco nor Sysco had representatives at the meeting Tuesday. A manager at Meisel-Sysco in Canton had no comment when reached by phone about the project.
