Lucite International is preparing to move its headquarters into Memphis’ city limits from unincorporated Shelby County.
The manufacturer of acrylic-based products generates $1.7 billion in annual revenue, according to its website, and employed 214 manufacturing and office workers in Shelby County at 2018’s end, according to records by the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) for Memphis & Shelby County.
The company is planning to move its 48 headquarters employees to an 18,000-square-foot office in Highwoods Properties-owned Triad Centre III, located near Shady Grove Road’s intersection with Poplar Avenue.
Lucite is currently headquartered at 7275 Goodlett Farms Parkway — within the Cordova “donut hole” — and operates a methacrylate (MMA) plant at 2665 Fite Road, just north of the city limits near Hwy. 51.
As part of the move, Lucite is asking EDGE to let it keep the personal property abatement it received in 2010 from the organization that preceded EDGE. The abatement was set to save Lucite $6.6 million in taxes from 2010 to 2025, according to past MBJ reporting.
The company pays an average of about $90,000 per year, according to EDGE records. Its local workforce has been declining since 2015, when it employed 267 people.
Lucite’s lease with Highwoods is “close to being completed” but is contingent on EDGE’s approval of the abatement transfer, according to a letter that Harry J. Skefos, the Martin Tate attorney representing Lucite, sent to EDGE.
The manufacturer has long enjoyed tax breaks in Shelby County: along with the 2010 abatement, the firm was incentivized in 1995 and 1998.
Lucite is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings.
Source: Memphis Business Journal