Akron cannot independently confirm FirstMerit Corp. fulfilled its 2013 promise to provide 150 new jobs in Akron in exchange for millions of dollars of upgrades to its aging plaza, but a city official said he has no reason to doubt the bank’s word.
To date, FirstMerit has not redeemed all incentives in the package brokered to keep its headquarters in downtown Akron, city and FirstMerit officials said. That package included the plaza upgrade, as well as a grant of up to a 1 percent yearly income tax rebate until 2018 on the new 150 jobs, provided the bank maintain 1,150 jobs within Akron.
Since FirstMerit hasn’t redeemed the grant, it has not been required to file any paperwork with the city documenting job creation, said Brad Beckert, Akron’s development engineering manager who oversaw the project.
“We’ll try all the avenues we can to try to get it verified ... but based on [the city’s development] agreement, no, I cannot go to them and make them verify they’ve created 150 jobs,” Beckert said.
FirstMerit is in the midst of a proposed acquisition by Columbus-based Huntington Bancshares.
Late last month, Huntington announced that it would acquire FirstMerit in a $3.4 billion stock and cash deal. The proposed deal needs approval from regulators and shareholders but is expected to close in the third quarter.
Company officials have acknowledged there will be branch consolidations — from both banks — layoffs but say it’s too early to give any details.
As part of the merger agreement, Huntington has pledged to employ 1,200 in Akron within two years. That’s roughly the same number of workers FirstMerit says it currently employs in its downtown headquarters, an operations center and branches in Akron.The agreement also calls for a new operations/call center based in the city of Akron within two years and a new Huntington charitable foundation with $20 million total to support Akron projects for the next 10 years.
Huntington Bank’s Summit County presence is fairly low, employing 133 people at 20 stand-alone and Giant Eagle branches. The bank employs 12,000 in six states with 8,650 in Ohio.
FirstMerit spokesman Rob Townsend said the bank has not determined if it will apply for the grant included in the city’s incentive package. The option continues yearly until 2018, according to the agreement with Akron.
However, Townsend said FirstMerit redeemed a separate $500,000 JobsOhio economic development grant last year, awarded in 2013. The JobsOhio grant also had the promise of 150 new Akron jobs tied to it — an amount Townsend said FirstMerit exceeded.
The bank filed paperwork with JobsOhio last June saying it had retained 1,029 jobs and created 155 new jobs for a total of 1,184 employees within the city of Akron at its downtown headquarters and branches, Townsend said. However, FirstMerit declined to provide a copy of the filing.
JobsOhio spokesman Matt Englehart, while confirming the grant, said JobsOhio does “not release correspondence with the companies we work with. We will prepare a report on companies’ project metric performance, such as job creation, that will be available to the public on our website this summer.”
JobsOhio is the privatized arm of state economic development. Funding for JobsOhio grants primarily comes from Ohio’s wholesale liquor business.
When told of the paperwork filed with JobsOhio, Beckert said Thursday that he would try to get a copy of the paperwork, but he didn’t have high hopes.
“We’ve tried to get some public information from them. That’s the downfall of being a private entity,” he said. “It would be nice if [FirstMerit] did create 150 jobs. I think that’s a great thing.
“I’ll call the state to try to get a verification, but FirstMerit wasn’t very forthcoming in telling us they created [the jobs]. I would have thought they would have requested the 1 percent payroll rebate,” Beckert said.
Beckert said unless FirstMerit or JobsOhio shares paperwork confirming the employment numbers, the city cannot verify it.
Even if the city were to get the form, city officials have no way to confirm the 2014 FirstMerit numbers to verify 155 jobs were added, Beckert said. That’s because city and state laws prohibit the sharing of confidential income tax information submitted by employers, even with other departments in the city, Akron Assistant Law Director Ellen Lander Nischt said.
Nevertheless, Beckert said the Cascade Plaza improvements were needed and he has no reason to doubt FirstMerit fulfilled its job-creation pledge.
The city’s final bill for the upgrade was $4.2 million. It borrowed the money from FirstMerit as part of the deal.
“Maybe they’ll forgive the loan,” Beckert joked.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty.