Conover Company, Hickory contractor in dispute over manufacturing building

He announced the company’s plans to create about 150 new jobs and invest $20 million in expanding his Conover-based business, which makes blades, buckets and other attachments for equipment such as tractors. and excavators.

Today, a year and a half later, Corriher takes on a different tone. His message to the community: I’m sorry.

He said he is sorry the company has not yet been able to add the jobs and complete the expansion he promised two years ago. Much of the regret comes as the company settled for hundreds of thousands of dollars in Catawba County and Conover tax incentives.

Corriher said the question of why the company hasn’t completed the project is a matter of curiosity in the community.

“At this point, I rarely go out in public because so many people ask me, ‘When are you going to do something with this new building? ‘” Corriher said.

He said he is limited in what he can say because the status of the large, new factory building is now the subject of a lawsuit between Everything Attachments and Neill Grading & Construction Co., the Hickory-based contractor the company hired to build the new plant.

According to Everything Attachments, Neill Grading left them a new building that they cannot occupy. Nate McAbee, the general manager of Everything Attachments, calls the factory “105,000 square feet of dead space.”

For his part, Neill Grading plans to respond with his own counterclaims against Everything Attachments.

Since announcing the expansion, Corriher said he has done what he can to fulfill his end of the deal, including spending about $10 million on new equipment.

But they still haven’t received an occupancy certificate for the new building. For this, the company blames Neill Grading.

The company’s specific claims against Neill Grading are outlined in the lawsuit filed in October. Everything Attachments filed the complaint under the corporate names TC Corriher Implement Co. and Landshark Attachments LLC.

In court documents, the company accuses Neill Grading of poor workmanship, making unauthorized and unwanted changes to building plans and “refusing to provide plans and accounting records in order to conceal defects and other faults”.

The documents reveal that the company further claims that Neill Grading falsely claimed to have passed the inspections and submitted “falsified specifications for the heater to the inspector for the purpose of passing the inspections on the basis of fraud.” .

Specifically, they claim that Neill Grading provided inspectors with documentation on minimum installation heights for heaters that contradicted information provided by the company that manufactures the heaters.

“Neill Grading later represented that his subcontractor had ‘changed’ the specifications,” according to the lawsuit.

When asked what it would take to get the certificate of occupancy, Catawba County Communications and Marketing Director Amy McCauley said, “We’re not sure, at this point. The owner or a representative will need to request an inspection to determine this.

Neill Grading has yet to publicly respond to the specific claims in the lawsuit, but said he plans to respond soon with his own claims.

“Neill intends to file a counterclaim at the Landlord’s Lawsuit no later than February 1, 2023, for breach of contract and to assert his liens on the real estate,” the company said in a statement. .

The company plans to pursue $2 million in liens against Everything Attachments for default. Everything Attachments notes in the lawsuit that it withheld payment and said it did so because of Neill Grading’s alleged breaches of contract.

Corriher said the company’s inability to move into the new building is hurting business. Hundreds of orders have been delayed and the company responds daily to inquiries about when the new plant will open.

Walking behind the existing factory, McAbee points out the many metal products the company now has to keep outdoors due to lack of space. He said the company had to pay employees more than $30 an hour to remove rust from inventory.

“We never stored metal outside until we had to,” he said.

Corriher and McAbee are adamant that they haven’t taken a dime from the county or city of Conover’s tax incentives. The city and county both confirmed that the company had not received any payment.

When local authorities grant tax incentives, they undertake to reimburse a certain amount of the property tax paid by the company concerned.

McCauley and Conover’s public information officer Madeleine Epley said the company would be eligible to start receiving payments this year provided it meets certain contractual requirements. The two also said the company hasn’t asked for payments.

In this case, Catawba County agreed to pay more than $376,200 over six years. Conover’s incentives totaled nearly $228,000 over a similar period.

Both local governments have said the company has not violated its incentive agreements with them and is not at risk of violating those agreements until December 31, 2025. This is the date the company is obligated to meet. its commitments in terms of jobs and investments.

McCauley and Epley said their respective local governments are not concerned about the project because of safeguards in place that would prevent the company from receiving public money unless it meets its obligations.

“Because contracts are performance-based, no public funds are spent without verification of progress toward contractual commitments,” McCauley said. “At the end of the performance period, if the total investment commitments have not been met by the company, the incentive contract contains clawback provisions under which the county would claw back all incentive payments received by the company up to this point.”