By Adam Studzinski

NORMAL – Heartland Community College has approved the incentive package for Rivian Automotive as the company continues talks on purchasing the former Mitsubishi Motors plant.

The Board of Trustees unanimously approved the deal Tuesday night. Heartland President Rob Widmer felt this is a low risk for a high reward.

“We recognize what those future prospects would mean to our community and growth for us, in terms of property values,” he said.

The package carries a potential for a 100 percent property tax rebate for five years, if certain criteria are met. From Heartland’s perspective, that would mean losing $42,000 dollars annually.

“As we build budgets, we ultimately will work with estimates and don’t feel that this particular dollar value will be that critical as we have the opportunity to plan for long term.” Widmer said.

Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe liked the potential to work with students from Heartland and other area schools.

“We’ve got tremendous ability to make parts, machine things, cut things, fabricate things,” said Scaringe. “So there’s an opportunity to actually open some of that space up to actually allow students, entrepreneurs, people to come in and build things; either for their business, for their school projects.”

Six other taxing bodies need to vote on the deal. Normal approved the package Monday night.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].