The designation will allow ACS to proceed with plans toconstruct up to a 20,000-sf facility on the site at Franks Streetand Veterans Drive for the production of thermoplastic pellets formanufacturing plants. The 11-acre site of the former tool factory,which was torn down more than a decade ago, has undergone a$7-million federally supervised environmental cleanup of toxicchemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and polychlorinatedbiphenyls (PCBs).

Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls acquired the site in 1996, andin February 2003 it reached an agreement with the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency to clean up the site.

ACS is expected to return to the village council to ask for $2.5million in tax relief for machines and other equipment at thefacility that is expected to employ 25 to 30 persons. "For thecommunity, this is an opportunity to turn what was once a veryquestionable site back to a productive site," says Fred Dillingham,executive director of the Economic Development Council ofLivingston County.