Honey maker may blossom with large Glenwood plant.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

GloryBee Foods Inc., a Eugene maker and distributor of honey and other natural foods, is considering building a large plant in Springfield's Glenwood area, records filed with Lane County show.

The 29-year-old company, owned by Dick and Pat Turanski, is going through the process required for the state to issue industrial development revenue bonds for GloryBee. The bonds would help finance GloryBee's expansion.

As part of the expansion, GloryBee would add 25 or more jobs to its 75-person work force, records indicate.

The Oregon Economic and Community Development Department has provided $750 million in industrial development bond financing to Oregon companies since the state launched the bond program in 1975.

The state issues the bonds for the benefit of a company, but doesn't guarantee them, said Mark Huston, manager of business finance at the department. Companies go the state bond route because it can offer lower interest rates and longer terms than other financing, he said.

As part of the state's qualifying process, the Lane County Board of Commissioners earlier this month approved GloryBee's request to pursue industrial development revenue bonds. State law requires local officials to confirm that the site a company is considering is suitably zoned.

Dick Turanski, GloryBee's president, declined to be interviewed for this article. His executive assistant, LaDonna Carlile, said the company was not advanced enough in its planning to comment. "We have not settled on any one site," Carlile said.

The company has considered property near Awbrey Lane in north Eugene, and another site recently opened up, she said.

GloryBee has its headquarters in west Eugene, in a building owned by a company headed by Turanski.

A memo distributed to the Lane County commissioners offered these details about the Springfield site:

GloryBee is considering building an 80,000- to 100,000-square-foot plant in the Wildish Industrial Park, west of Nugget Way and south of 19th Avenue in Glenwood.

GloryBee has 75 employees, and a new facility would let GloryBee grow to 100 or more employees. A larger facility also would allow the company to hold larger inventories and broaden its product line.

The county packet also included a Jan. 13, 2004, letter to Turanski from John Tamulonis, Springfield's community and economic development manager, stating that the Wildish parcels that Turanski was interested in are zoned appropriately.

The letter also noted that the parcels are in Springfield's enterprise zone. The zone offers three to five years of property tax waivers on new construction by eligible companies.

Under state rules, companies must spend more than $25,000 on buildings or equipment and must boost employment by 10 percent - which could be about eight employees in GloryBee's case.

GloryBee has not filed an application for the enterprise zone, Tamulonis said.

Several Eugene-Springfield area companies have used industrial development revenue bonds to help fund their projects.

In 1979, the state issued $4.4 million in bonds for an expansion at Spectra-Physics Scanning Systems Inc., a west Eugene laser scanner maker later acquired by PSC.

In 1993, the state issued $3 million in bonds that Weyerhaeuser used to buy machinery for its Springfield factory to recycle old corrugated containers into linerboard, the smooth outer layer of cardboard boxes.

The latest local industrial development revenue bond issuance was for Oregon Precision Industries, a Eugene company that makes plastic injection molded products, including handles for package bottled beverages. In 2001, the state issued $2.7 million in tax-exempt bonds and $720,000 in taxable bonds to help fund a $4.47 million plant upgrade.

The bonds are designed to help small- to medium-sized manufacturers.

"It gives smaller companies access to what we would call `Wall Street financing,' ' Huston said.

To be eligible, a company generally must spend at least $1 million on the project, and its capital costs can't exceed $10 million in the city or county where the project is located, he said.

CAPTION(S):

A GloryBee Foods worker fills jars with honey at the west Eugene plant. The company is planning an expansion.