Fort Worth Vies For $186M Expansion From Eye Care Device Manufacturer
Fort Worth officials are lining up $6M in economic incentives to entice one of the city’s biggest employers to relocate a pair of manufacturing lines from Europe to Cowtown.
Fort Worth Economic Development Department officials proposed a seven-year economic development agreement with eye care company Alcon. The company is considering relocating its single-dose pharmaceutical products manufacturing from France and its viscoelastic surgical devices line from Belgium.
The deal could bring a $186M expansion to Alcon’s Fort Worth campus at 6201 South Freeway and create 241 jobs, the Dallas Business Journal reported.
If both pharmaceutical product lines are relocated to Fort Worth, the city would offer a 70% tax break on Alcon's property and business equipment taxes, capped at $6M.
Should the company only move the manufacturing line from France, Fort Worth would give just a 60% tax break. The relocation of just the surgical device line from Belgium would get a 50% break, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The agreement will require Alcon to spend $68M in real estate improvements and $118M on equipment by the end of 2028. Fort Worth City Council will consider the matter during its Tuesday meeting.
Fort Worth officials estimated the city would collect $3.5M in new tax revenue after the first year of the possible expansion.
Alcon was founded in Fort Worth in 1945 and maintains a workforce of around 4,500 employees in the city. The company merged with Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis 14 years ago before splitting in 2019 and becoming its own publicly traded company.
Relocating the manufacturing lines could save Alcon tariff charges on its imports. The company spent $27M on tariff-related charges during the second quarter and expects that total to reach $100M for the full year, Chief Financial Officer Tim Stonesifer said during Alcon’s Q2 earnings call last month.
“It takes a lot of thought, money and effort to move manufacturing,” Stonesifer said during the call. “So we're really looking for a stable policy before we start making some larger moves like that.”
City officials nominated Alcon’s Fort Worth campus for the Texas Enterprise Zone Program last month. That program would give the company a state sales and use refund of up to $1.2M over five years. The company would be required to spend at least $40M on facility upgrades and maintain 1,540 employees.
Fort Worth also made waves in the region's growing semiconductor industry this summer by snagging a couple of manufacturers planning to invest nearly $1B in the city.
Adom Industries Inc. plans to spend $229M on a headquarters, a prototyping lab and a semiconductor fabrication facility. And Taiwanese tech giant Wistron InfoComm Corp. is investing $761M in two facilities to manufacture components for Nvidia supercomputers.
