The designation will allow ACS to proceed with plans to construct up to a 20,000-sf facility on the site at Franks Street and Veterans Drive for the production of thermoplastic pellets for manufacturing plants. The 11-acre site of the former tool factory, which was torn down more than a decade ago, has undergone a $7-million federally supervised environmental cleanup of toxic chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls acquired the site in 1996, and in February 2003 it reached an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the site.

ACS is expected to return to the village council to ask for $2.5 million in tax relief for machines and other equipment at the facility that is expected to employ 25 to 30 persons. "For the community, this is an opportunity to turn what was once a very questionable site back to a productive site," says Fred Dillingham, executive director of the Economic Development Council of Livingston County.