GREENFIELD – A propeller manufacturer has plans to triple the size of its facility and more than double its workforce two years after starting production in the city.

Officials have started the process to approve tax breaks for the company as an incentive for the expansion.

Yamaha Marine Precision Propellers, Inc. began operations in its 55,000-square-foot plant at 1887 W. New Road in March 2021. The company moved the first steps of its propeller process from Marion County, which consist of assembling wax patterns of propellers, dipping in slurry and casting in a foundry. Then the propellers head to Marion County, where they are ground, finished and boxed.

Now, the company wants to move the rest of its Marion County operations to Greenfield.

Batuhan Ak, general manager of the facility, said at a Greenfield Redevelopment Commission meeting this week that the grinding and finishing operations will bring more robotics and automation, as well as skilled employees needed to oversee them.

“We look at the combination between our production team members and technology,” Ak said. “We don’t view technology as a way to get rid of headcount, we view it as a way to grow the business.”

To accommodate the additional operations, Yamaha plans to grow its facility by 110,000 square feet. That is anticipated to happen in 2023 and 2024. About 101 more jobs paying roughly $25.29 an hour would be added by the end of 2025 to its current Greenfield headcount of about 90.

Alexis Sowder of Indianapolis-based KSM Location Advisors, which helped Yamaha with its move to Greenfield and is helping with its latest move, said the expansion represents an investment of over $16 million in real property and roughly $5 million in machinery and equipment.

Greenfield City Council this week unanimously approved a resolution regarding a 10-year tax abatement for the real property and equipment improvements associated with the expansion. The resolution calls for deductions from the assessed values of the improvements by 100% in the first year of the abatement period before diminishing by 10 percentage points over the years that follow until the taxes are fully phased in.

Sowder said that throughout the 10-year abatement period the estimated taxes abated total about $147,000 while Yamaha would still pay an estimated $677,000 in taxes on the latest improvements.

A public hearing on the tax abatement is slated for the city council’s next meeting, which is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 26 at City Hall, 10 S. State St., Greenfield.

Ak said if phase two is successful, there is potential for a third and fourth phase culminating in moving several other subsidiaries across the country to Greenfield and creating a national headquarters.