On Wednesday the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority (PIDA) approved the expansion of the Moshannon Valley Economic Development Partnership’s certification, which will now enable the partnership to administer the PIDA loan program throughout all of Centre County.
The partnership was previously certified to administer this state loan program within the Moshannon Valley, which includes western Centre County and eastern Clearfield County.
“We are very pleased that the PIDA board of directors approved the partnership to be able to provide loan funding to businesses located throughout all of Centre County,” said Stan LaFuria, executive director of the partnership.
He added: “We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are one of only a small number of certified economic development organizations within the entire state. Only certified economic development organizations are permitted to package state PIDA loan deals.”
The PA Industrial Development Authority has provided matching loan financing to businesses since the 1950’s, according to LaFuria.
It started out as a program to help manufacturers buy land and build new manufacturing facilities. But now, the program is available to all businesses and for all uses, including acquisition of machinery and equipment and working capital.
“In 2017, the state PIDA board lowered the interest rate on their loans to 2 percent and we immediately heard from companies located within both the Moshannon Valley region and the State College area,” said LaFuria.
“We began to think at that time that we should consider getting PIDA to expand our certification to allow us to work with businesses located throughout all of Centre County.”
The PIDA loan program is a partner with local banks and other lending institutions as it provides 50 percent of the financing that businesses need for their projects. Job retention and job creation are key goals of this loan program.
Recent PIDA loan deals packaged by the partnership include Organic Climbing and its construction of a new manufacturing facility in the Philipsburg region and Cutting Edge Machining Solutions of Clearfield County, which used PIDA and bank financing to purchase new machinery.
For more information about the PIDA loan program go to the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) Web site at www.dced.pa.gov/PIDA, or contact the partnership office at 814-342-2260.