Company Lured To Beverly With Tax Breaks Moving Forward

BEVERLY, MA -- A tech company that is being lured to Beverly from Peabody with tax incentives is getting ready to appear before the city's planning board. Harmonic Drive Systems Inc. wants to build 96,000-square-foot facility on vacant land, with room to expand by as much as an additional 35,000-square-feet. The move would mean Harmonic would vacant its current, 46,000-square-foot facility on Lynnfield Street in Peabody.

The move would allow Harmonic Drive to quadruple current, monthly production rates, according to the Salem News, which first reported this story. Beverly is considering giving a ten-year tax-increment financing deal and tax credits Harmonic Drive.

In a tax-increment financing, or TIF, deal, the municipality floats bonds to pay for infrastructure and sometimes construction costs for a private sector developer. Those bonds are repaid used with the additional tax revenue from the higher assessment of the property.

Harmonic Drive Systems makes precision servo actuators, gearheads and gear component sets. Demand for those parts is expected to increase in coming years as companies look to increased use of robotics.

For more on this story see the Salem News. Subscribe to Beverly Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Patch file photo.