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The Birmingham News
"Distributor moves to Shelby citing city's higher license fees"
One of Birmingham’s oldest distribution companies is moving to Alabaster into a new office-warehouse that will more than double its size. BTC Wholesale Distribution Inc., formerly Birmingham Tobacco Co., is leaving Birmingham after 75 years in the city. On Monday, the company purchased 11 acres in the Shelby West Corporate Park, where it will invest $2.5 million to build a 75,000-sqaure-foot office-warehouse. In addition to needing more space, BTC officials said the move is partly because of Birmingham’s high business license fees that hamper the company’s growth. BTC President Frank D’amico III said Birmingham charges license fees based on a company’s total sales whereas Alabaster caps those fees and doesn’t charge more as a company increases its sales. “We’ve been in Birmingham a long time,” D’amico said “This will put us in a better position to serve our customers.” D’amico said BTC’s employees will benefit from the move because they will no longer see Birmingham and Jefferson County occupational taxes taken out of their paychecks. “Our business is continuing to grow,” he said. Hopefully, we can add more employees as we grow.” DISTRIBUTOR: Alabaster agreed to abate taxes Birmingham Tobacco and Grocery was formed by D’amico’s grandfather in 1927. It stopped distributing groceries and carried tobacco and candy products and became known as Birmingham Tobacco Co. Around five years ago, the company changed its name to BTC because it added groceries, frozen foods and other products and now each week distributes to more than 1,000 businesses such as convenience stores, grocers, drug stores and restaurants in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. “We’re very pleased,” said James Dedes, executive director of the Shelby County Economic and Industrial Development Authority. “This is very well established company that has been in the City of Birmingham for the past 75 years.” “That’s really a big boost for us,” said Cam Ward, Alabaster economic development director. As incentives, Alabaster agreed to abate BTC’s non-educational ad valorem and use taxes for 10 years, and waive business license fees for 18 months and a 3 percent tax on startup costs, he said. “That makes a difference,” he said. “The incentives make you competitive with other (locations) in the Birmingham area.” Eason, Graham & Sandner Commercial Real Estate represented BTC in its purchase of the site and will serve as a consultant in developing the facility, which will be much different than the 30,000-square-foot center the company occupies at 3500 Messer-Airport Highway. “BTC’s new building will be state-of-art distribution facility in one of the metropolitan area’s newest and best located industrial parks,” said Andy Sink broker with EG&S. The new building should be ready for BTC to move in by the end of this summer. BTC is the second company in recent months to announce relocation to Shelby West, a 400-acre corporate park off Interstate 65 near Shelby County Airport. In October, Steve Parker, owner of Ditch Witch of Birmingham, said he would move his business to Alabaster from Pelham. AP Technoglass, a company that provides glass to the Honda plant in Lincoln, started operations at Shelby West last year.
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