City awards tax breaks to manufacturer

The El Paso City Council on Tuesday granted tens of thousands of dollars in tax breaks to a company once considering relocating to Ciudad Juarez.

The Council awarded Gustavo Farell, of company Cesar Scott, $43,175 in tax abatements in exchange for a projected $700,000 investment, which includes renovating a blighted Central El Paso building.

Farell will be moving his operations from West El Paso to 1731 Myrtle, east of Downtown El Paso. Cesar Scott manufactures wire harnesses for appliances and automakers.

Farell started the company 25 years ago, which has plants in Mexico and El Paso. He plans to expand from 12 employees to 16 once operations in El Paso move to the Myrtle location. The employees make at least $11.50 an hour.

“We always have the option to go to Juarez because we can get the same skill set of workers in Juarez and part of the reason we’re staying where is we like the opportunity here,” said Farell.

The City is granting him a tax rebate on his property taxes for five years, plus a break on sales tax for construction materials and waiving the construction fee.

The City is trying to get businesses to locate to undeveloped areas in the core of the city. And if the companies create jobs and renovate vacant buildings – then the city is willing to give the companies tax breaks.

“What (the El Paso area) it needs is individual investment, people that want to do more than just an abandoned broken down building. From what I understand there’s more than 100 buildings in the area that are not being done anything with, so this a step from the city standpoint and our standpoint to have a joint investment,” said Farell.

“We took a vacant building and we turned it into something great. And we kept those jobs here in El Paso,” said City Rep. Cortney Niland.