BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- Butler County commissioners approved a tax abatement package Monday for Ohio Casualty Corp., which is working to complete a deal to acquire the Fairfield corporate offices of the former parent company of McAlpin's.
Ohio Casualty wants to retain its corporate offices in Hamilton while expanding to the Fairfield facility on Seward Road.
Ohio Casualty agreed to accept the remaining four years of the 10-year tax abatement that had been given to Mercantile Stores Inc. The company will receive a 100 percent abatement on real property taxes for the next four years.
The commissioners also will stop efforts to regain the $2.3 million in tax breaks that Mercantile had been given in the first six years of the tax abatement agreement.
The commissioners believed the county was entitled to the $2.3 million because Mercantile, which was taken over by Dillard's in August, failed to fulfill a promise to remain in the county for 10 years.
Unlike Mercantile, Ohio Casualty will not pay personal property taxes because insurance companies are exempt from those taxes. But that will have very little economic impact, said Curt Arulf, county economic development administrator.
"We would be no better off financially if Mercantile had stayed," he said. "It sure beats the alternative -- that is, Ohio Casualty packing up and moving out of the county."
Officials of Fairfield and the Fairfield School District gave their consent to the tax abatement agreement, said Commissioner Courtney Combs.
Ohio Casualty plans to have about 1,000 employees over the long term at the Fairfield facility, said Cindy Denney, the company's manager of corporate communications, about the same number that Mercantile employed there.
The approval of the tax abatement package was one of the steps necessary for the completion of Ohio Casualty's purchase of the building that had belonged to Mercantile.
The purchase would prevent Butler County from losing Ohio Casualty to Kentucky or another area and would enable it to quickly fill the old Mercantile facility with a substantial employer.
"It could have been a big loss to the county," Mr. Combs said. "It turned out to be a big win."
Ohio Casualty officials like the Fairfield facility's high quality and the room for expansion at that site, said Barry Porter, the company's chief financial officer. Mr. Porter attended Monday's commissioners' meeting for the vote on the tax abatement.
"We had to have another site as a back-up for our computer operations," he said. "It's a fine facility."
The company hasn't decided how many of the 1,350 people who work at its Hamilton offices would be transferred to the Fairfield facility, he said.
County and Hamilton officials are worried that a large number of employees may be moved from the Hamilton office.
