BY TRAVIS E. POLING Special to the Press 07/27/2024 06:00 AM
Electric vehicle maker Tesla has been shipping cars out of the sprawling RCR Taylor Rail Logistics Park for more than a year, but now the company is taking up more than 180,000 square feet of warehouse space there just 30 miles from its east Travis County gigafactory. Also this week, South Korean chemical company Soulbrain Holdings Co. Ltd. updated its development at RCR, a move that will add significantly to Taylor’s sales tax and property tax revenue.
It is unknown exactly what Tesla, the electric vehicle company run by the world’s wealthiest person Elon Musk, will do with the 183,000-square-foot leased building along the rail siding.
It adds to Tesla’s area holdings, that include facilities in Kyle and Hutto in addition to the 10-million-square-foot gigafactory on toll road Texas 130.
“Tesla holds everything pretty tight to the vest,” said Williamson County Economic Development Partnership CEO Dave Porter.
Informed speculation is that Tesla could use the space to receive materials and parts for EV production at the nearby gigafactory.
The other big win for the rail yard and Taylor was revealed in city proceedings that announced Samsung supplier Soulbrain will make a larger investment in the city than previously known.
The City Council approved tax incentives this week for Soulbrain to build a $575 million phosphoric acid manufacturing plant at the RCR rail facility. The chemicals are a key component to manufacturing the advanced semiconductors that will be produced at the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. foundry now under construction.
The tax incentives echo an incentive already approved by the Taylor Economic Development Corp. It will give a 25% percent abatement on property taxes for 10 years at each of the two phases of construction.
The first phase is slated for completion in 2029 and the second for 2033.
This is tied to Samsung’s long-term growth plan. The current Samsung project on 1,200 acres in southwest Taylor is a $17 billion investment, but the company has pledged additional foundry investment in Taylor and at its Austin campus to total about $44 billion in next two decades.
Ben White, CEO of the Taylor EDF, said the deal with Soulbrain is important for the city because it will add 50 jobs, add to the sales-tax collections and increase the property tax base for the city, school district and county. Taylor Independent School District will receive taxes on the full valuation of Soulbrain’s improvements.
White said the deal, as with Samsung, allows the city to collect sales-anduse tax on all the materials purchased for the construction project, a move that adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to city coffers.
While proximity to Samsung for some suppliers is enough incentive to locate close by, a tax break or investment by local governments is required for companies to qualify for federal CHIPS Act grants and loans from the federal government.
White said Soulbrain is in the process of applying for those federal incentives offered to help secure the nation’s access to advanced semiconductors that keep things like cars, fighter jets and cell phones in operation.
The most recent land purchase in the rail park, which also is next to the Hutto Megasite development, is a 12.2-acre parcel deeded Feb. 1 by HTNS America The company is the U.S. arm of the Hanaro TNS Co. Ltd, a 25-yearold worldwide logistics company based in South Korea. Various units of Samsung around the world have been longtime clients and rail transportation is a big part of its distribution mix.
The 755-acre RCR rail logistics park started coming together in 2018, long before Taylor was known as a possible Samsung Austin Semiconductor expansion site for an advanced manufacturing foundry.
Owner McAlister Assets built its own rail spur and intermodal rail yard at U.S. 79 and FM 3349 with access to the Missouri Pacific line.
“It’s a big win for the rail park,” Porter said of the recent developments.
With Soulbrain the takeaway is “that at the end of the day, they took more property than what they were going to. It’s a great win for Taylor that happened because Samsung needed them nearby.”
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