Schaumburg recommends tax break to lure truck repair business

Schaumburg trustees have recommended that Cook County grant a tax incentive that would bring a Wood Dale-based truck repair business to the village's Spectrum Industrial Park.

If the county grants the Class 6B incentive, AA Truck Repair would relocate to a former FedEx site in Schaumburg. The existing 34,882-square-foot facility - vacant for 3½ years - lies on a 2.93-acre lot at 700 W. Estes.

AA Truck Repair, through its parent company AA Real Estate LLC, plans to spend $500,000 to rehab the facility for semi-truck repairs and overhauling. Company officials say they will transfer 15 employees from Wood Dale and hire five more. The average salary at the new facility will be $52,800, according to company owners.

The Class 6B tax incentive aims to make industrial properties in Cook County which have been vacant and on the market for at least two years competitive with comparable sites in surrounding counties.

The incentive reduces the level of assessment on a property from 25 to 10 percent - effectively cutting property taxes in half - for 10 years. The level of assessment then gradually rises over the next two years before returning to normal.

Schaumburg officials reported that the former FedEx site was billed $49,965 in property taxes during the 2012 tax year.

With the Class 6B tax incentive granted, the annual tax bill is estimated at $26,280, while without it the bill would be about $65,700.

Schaumburg has recommended more than 75 Class 6B incentives since 1988, according to Economic Development Manager Matt Frank said. Only one of these was ultimately denied by Cook County, due to a discrepancy in the description of the business type.