The Jacksonville City Council voted at the end of October to give a small expansion to the region’s enterprise zone.
The expansion will be on Jacksonville’s north side to once again include 1275 Sandusky Road, the former CSC property, which has been idle for a little more than a year. Turner Scientific recently purchased the building to move from their current location at 1351 Lincoln Avenue. The move is a result of needed expansion.
Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation Vice President and Enterprise Zone Administrator Bonni Waters says that the expansion of the enterprise zone will help Turner Scientific to expand their business with some helpful incentives: “The advantages of the expansion are the property tax abatement that’s offered through the zone and a sales tax abatement on building materials. For the city, it’s occupancy of a vacant building lessening the opportunity for vandalism and vagrancy. They are expanding their business and growing it by 5-6 employees within the next year, so it’s a good thing for the city.”
Waters says that Jeremy and Annette Turner, who own Turner Scientific, are going to add an additional amount of money on top of the nearly $1 million purchase price for the property with an expansion into a state-of-the-art research facility: “There’s a Phase 1 expansion where they are adding labs and doing necessary work to take care of the normal wear and tear that happens when a building’s been vacant. Phase 2 will include the addition of solar panels and some other things. Their dream down the line is to create a technology park out there because they have 9.6 acres.”
Construction on the building to get it prepared from the move has been underway for the last several weeks. The expansion of the enterprise zone was approved with an emergency clause by the city council last night to help the Turners continue on with the expansion without slowing down a time table for the move.
The company specializes in ethical biomedical research on hearing loss. It is the only U.S.-based company that makes sure new devices and medications are safe for people to use and won’t affect their hearing. Its primarily role is research and development in that field. Turner Scientific has been in operation at their Lincoln Avenue location since 2019.