Dana unveils plans to expand headquarters

Company will consolidate up to 200 workers at facility

Dana Holding Corp will expand its headquarters, bringing an additional 200 employees under one roof. The expansion is expected to cost between $7 million and $10 million, officials said Tuesday.

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Dana Holding Corp will expand its headquarters, bringing an additional 200 employees under one roof. The expansion is expected to cost between $7 million and $10 million, officials said Tuesday.

Dana Holding Corp. will expand its world headquarters in Maumee as part of a plan that will put more of its top decision makers under one roof.

The headquarters, which Dana calls the Corporate Offices and Technology Center, will grow by more than 40,000 square feet from its current 191,000 square feet.

Company officials estimated the cost of the expansion at $7 million to $10 million.

About 450 Dana employees plus some contractors now work at the headquarters building. A company spokesman said he expects that number to grow by about 200 when the addition is complete. Many of those people will come from another Dana facility in the Toledo area, while some will move from a company office in the Detroit area.

In addition, a Dana subsidiary called Dana Cos. LLC has purchased the headquarters building and the Technology Drive property on which it sits for $17.6 million. Dana had leased the property from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority since it was built in 2003.

“These decisions reinforce Dana’s continued commitment to the greater Toledo area, which has been home to our world headquarters for nearly nine decades,” said Roger Wood, Dana’s president and chief executive officer. “The consolidation of much of our corporate staff into one location will not only foster collaboration and innovation but will also lead to greater engagement with the community.”

The port authority bought the land for $600,000 in 2002 and built the facility. The property, which was in Monclova Township but owned by the city of Toledo, became part of a Joint Economic Development Zone. Maumee annexed the land, but Monclova Township continued to collect the property taxes on the site. Toledo, Maumee, and Monclova Township shared the income tax.

A port authority spokesman said it would use the money from the sale to pay off bonds and loans associated with the property and to pay costs associated with the lease termination.

Work on the headquarters expansion is scheduled to begin in September and to be completed in the summer of 2015.

At that time, Dana will allow the lease to expire at its facility on Trust Drive in Springfield Township, which has about 175 Dana employees plus about 100 contractors.

Most of the people at the Trust Drive office will move to the expanded corporate headquarters, said Jeff Cole, Dana’s senior director of corporate communications. Others will move to a Dana building across the street from the headquarters building, or to another Dana building on Longbow Drive in Maumee.

Dana will also move an undetermined number of employees from its Grace Lake facility near Detroit Metropolitan Airport to the world headquarters. The company has about 140 people at Grace Lake. An application for a state job creation tax credit indicated that about 50 people will be relocated to Maumee by the end of 2017.

The company will terminate the lease on its Grace Lake facility next summer. It is searching for another building in the Detroit area that is more convenient to the remaining employees, which include sales staff.

Dana officials said more than a quarter of the company’s global sales come from companies based in the Detroit area, so the company will still have a strong presence in the Detroit area. Dana also has manufacturing facilities in southeast Michigan.

When the reshuffling is completed, Dana expects to have about 800 employees at its three facilities in the Maumee area, plus about 100 contractors.

Preliminary plans for the expansion, which Mr. Cole emphasized could change, show that the additional space will be on the north end of the headquarters building, which is just west of U.S. 23/​I-475 between the Salisbury Road and U.S. 24 interchanges.

Mr. Cole said Ohio granted Dana a two-year (2016-17) extension on a job creation tax credit that it originally received when the Technology Drive facility was built.

Maumee approved a 10-year partial tax abatement on the expansion. Mr. Cole said that will be worth $1.1 million to $1.5 million over the 10 years.

He said Dana will make the Anthony Wayne School District and Penta County Joint Vocational School District whole for the tax money they would lose in that deal.

Dana designs and manufactures axles, driveshafts, transmissions, and other automobile components.

The company was founded in New Jersey in 1904 by Clarence Spicer. Charles Dana bought a controlling interest in 1914.

It was known as Spicer Manufacturing Co. when it moved to the Toledo area in 1928.

It was renamed for Mr. Dana in 1946. He retired as chairman and CEO in 1966.

Before moving to its current headquarters, Dana’s top management worked at the Dorr Street campus that now belongs to Health Care REIT.

Contact Chip Towns at: ctowns@theblade.com or 419-724-6194.