welcome to spotlight on maplewood i'm your host city manager chuck all three am broke ground on a new state of the art laboratory on aug fifteenth three employees maplewood citizens of public officials attended the groundbreaking ceremony the new facility provides a creative and collaborative work environment the three m building is a great addition to the company's maplewood campus it's an expected to be completed in the next couple years we have two guests from three  today elizabeth and bloom and doug stand first let's talk with elizabeth welcome elizabeth can you tell me your official title and what your role at three am is and how many years you've been with three up on the lavatory manager and i work in corporate r and d services and my role is to work with the researchers in the laboratories that will be moving into building twenty to design innovative spaces for the new building great thanks for joining us now tell me about the facility i hear that innovation is a big concept at three am can you talk about how important that is the three amany approach to your business innovation is the core of everything that we do new technologies new products new markets it's it's how we think and how we operate every day and think of iconic products that three m has generated and everything from post it notes in our consumer area scotch brite abrasive scotch it he says i and products that i'm thinking about a lot these days safety vests and hard hats why didn't you tell me this is a new r and d building what is three homes investment in research and development and can it maybe like a percentage of sales or all in good tooling announced last year that will be increasing d funding to six percent of sales right now it's five and a half percent and building to eighty our research and development building to eighty is first stepped in that increased investment while the first step that's impressive tell me about this new research and development facility i soon it's not manufacturing but what's the size of the building how many floors where is it on the campus and more importantly how much is three m invested in this site well it's a large building it will be the fourth largest building on our campus four hundred thousand square feet will have four stories and it's arranged in in two wings with a knuckle in between where we're hoping to have a lot of the research communities moving in and out and flowing into another building spending one hundred fifty million dollars on the building and it's unique looking from the buildings that we have on campus which are mostly this building is going to have a lot of glass and will bring light throughout the entire building great great well my employees and i are these new people or you know are they from the campus so the building will hold up to seven hundred researchers these are researchers existing researchers and will be moving them out of older research spaces older laboratory buildings into new building new facilities why is it important to have new buildings for companies i heard it's an important recruitment tool well it's important for continuing research as we're working in new technology  areas it's important to have a syllabus that will allow us to accommodate new technologies but it's very important in bringing new talent into the company over the next five years we can tap thirty percent of our employees retiring and so as we look to bring in the next generation of employees that are now really best in class and hoping for have them stay for their whole careers we're talking to a twenty five year three  employee right now its employees very important that we have new facilities and facilities that they can expect to work and for their entire careers you're absolutely always want the brightest in the best is of three buildings just to the east of the new building and then in terms of connection i think certainly the skyway is important but our connections to build from building to building on campus and certainly with this new building are are so strong that i would say we don't even we don't even need that that direct connection great one was the last big investment by three m in the maple campus ten years ago three m build the innovation center which is positioned just across the lake from the new building building to a deal set in the far northwest corner of our campus and we'll look out and have a visual connection with the innovations that are very i hear things about sustainable lead design is three is that something that's important to three and sustainability is very important to three am in the construction of this new building we will have it lead certified great great and most important what is going to be open when we start seeing people moving into the building construction will finish in the fall of twenty fifteen and we will begin moving the process of moving the research labs in at that time right in construction has started now already it's yes we're preparing the site right now and hoping to pour some foundations yet this year wow that's great unfortunately we're out of time for this segment and thanks for joining us elizabeth it was very enjoyable thanks for having me we'll be back with doug staying who's also for three m first let's take another look at that the second part of our show will focus on the partnership between three am and maple wood and putting together the necessary finance heat for this project joining me now is doug stang for three out doug thanks for joining us it's  been a partnership and a long time in coming can you tell me what your title is a three element in your background and really what your role why i've been at three am now for six years i work in public affairs so our role is to work with other local communities like maplewood and coming up with ways that the rear end can be a strong citizen participant in community activities as well as help at the capitol with government affairs issues cure great great thank you again for joining us let's get into some of our questions first one they always talk about taxing corporate finance and it was a big part of this package to finance it can you tell me what what tipped for taxing or but financing is all in financing their districts that are created by cities and it's probably the most common economic development tool used by cities across the state most cities have one if not a couple different districts within their communities and what it really is intended to do is help develop existing property that's vacant or redevelop a property that needs to be redeveloped in this case we came together and three m had a piece of property that there was nothing on its vacant and we built our lab and what the intent is is that you start out with a base value maybe the value is minimal you build a new building you add value increase the property tax that's generated from that and then from that pool of money you can use that to reimburse for specific expenses related to the development that abuse occurs it's all drawn out in state statute like i said most cities have at least one of them and they're very very common tools and very successful tools for ok you said it's all in state statute i signed or stand the city and three on needed legislative approval i read about mayo clinic and mall of america the legislature how did that all work why did we have to go to the legislature and the legislature spells out exactly how you can do it and every year as i think the legislature probably has about twelve thirteen different proposals that modify existing because their project may not fit within those guidelines the reason for the state and or for three m in the city of maplewood coming forward was essentially because of the duration of the district the state allows a duration to be eight years but because of the scope of the project the size of it eight years wasn't enough to generate the payback for some of those expenses so legislation was was put forward the next we were successful and i think one of the reasons as you mentioned was male model america a lot of these other entities had more complex tax incentive package his request from the state ours was pretty straightforward and and legislators got behind very early on and we actually moved through the legislature prior legislat we were investing one hundred fifty million dollars in the building itself but just because you build a building or you spend that much doesn't assimilate translate into that being the value of the building so the way it works is it doesn't cut three m's tax liability to the city we don't pay last we continue to pay what we're paying and as the valuation increases for the campus the center all that our property tax will continue to go up we're only talking about the parcel of property where the lab is going to be on that increment any new property tax generated a result of the increased value in that site that's the portion we're talking about but there's no guarantee on what that may be but we're we're anticipating through historical trends that sort of thing that for three m we're probably looking at over a twenty five year period about  you so you don't get the money in any particular year it's only is that because as you pay your taxes you get some of that tax money but that's that's correct and we have of the states bells out expenses that you can seek reimbursement when we have an expense we can bring it before the city in the city then pays back if there aren't those expenses or the dollars aren't there there's no payback for three m and i heard you say a couple of time frames in here that first you said it was eight years and that's in there but how many years did you say you the three m gets the tax money back a typical diff district with last eight years but this one again because of that the size of it it's going to twenty five years it takes a few years as everybody knows with that property taxes you're always a year or two behind in terms of the property is vacant it takes a year before there's actually something on there reflected the tax rolls so it takes some time for actually value into if money to be available and that's why the twenty five years you need the longer period of time to generate the money to pay back for those expenses so what if heaven forbid taxes go up faster than it is than ever and more money is generated as three m get the windfall through them or only get what we have expenses for so there's additional revenue beyond that the city would be the benefactor of those additional revenues not there with the district then and if it's better to the district still would last a twenty five years a payback over the for the legitimate expenses of all expenses are paid for than the district potentially could and sooner than that if it generated that type of revenue touch ok so the money starts coming in are there requirements the three m has other than just increasing the tax base and capturing net i've heard that three m is committed to having a certain number of employees and that's all in there and at a minimum pay rate you know the city act i think did an excellent job on behalf of their residents making sure that if the city was going to make an investment in this infrastructure in this invest that three am should also provide some assurance to the community that there's going to be a certain number of jobs that there are certain they're paid a certain wage and we agree agreed that the the facilities going to house about seven are employees but we've committed that they'll be an average salary of fifty dollars an hour for those employees in the facility so those are high paying jobs with with good benefits so the return for the residents of the community are those people that make higher wages living in the community spending those dollars in the community or if they don't live in the community people coming to work and stopping at the gas stations in the restaurants and the vendors that three m uses to support some of the activities that go on in campus so there's going to be a return for the residents of the community and that was important to the city to the mayor to the council to make sure that those safeguards were in place to the citizens the citizens investment in this as well let me see if i have that correct you're telling me three i'm guaranteed to maplewood that you'll have a minimum of seven hundred employees and that the minimum pay of fifty dollars per hour that's one hundred thousand dollars per year if my math is correct that's an annual payroll in that building of over seventy two million dollars for the next twenty five years and three i'm over that twenty five years is going to get one thousand million back i know they don't pretend together but that's that's significant we believe so we think this is a win win situation for three m to be able to to reinvest in maplewood to continue to have our core r and d continue to be done here at the three m center it's important through our c e o in the tooling of the groundbreaking stressed his commitment to the city and to the state of minnesota and excited the excitement that he had about this building being here but then on the return the residents of this community can know that there's jobs are being paid a high salary a commitment of those jobs here at maplewood for the years to come great that is really great i also understand that three m isn't even done with this building to eighty that they're in the agreement there's other investments required between three our mn city for additional projects you know we're at a phase now where their campus a lot of the buildings were built at the same time so many of them need updating residents of maplewood may have noticed some changes if you're driving on ninety four  to the south of the center that the parents of the the fountain is gone and now there it's a it's a nicer garden out there the entrance to three am is a little bit different so some investments already have begun but we're going to continue to see increased investment in updating the campus kind of transforming it make it more attractive to new hires as was mentioned by elizabeth where we're facing a turn over employees having attract new talent and we want to make sure that we have a campus that reflects the innovative spirit that we've had for so many years so we're excited about those investments and i think the residents will continue to see those be made for the years to come so we're not done with to eighty and we've got more project those doug that's all the time we have today is certainly thank you elizabeth for coming in today it certainly wasn't joyful and interesting still ok this is some great information for maplewood at three am it's a great partnership we'll see you in a few weeks