Windsor City Council has given its blessing to a tax break of more than half a million dollars to a local manufacturing plant.

Flex-N-Gate, which is an international automotive parts manufacturer, operates a 250,000-square foot plant on Ellis Street East. The company wants to expand the facility by another 12,500 square feet, and applied for a tax break under the Business Retention and Expansion Grant to do so. The grant would refund the company 100 percent of the tax increase resulting from its expansion for the next 10 years—or around $563,000.

The current Flex-N-Gate facility employs 580 people. At a cost of $3.2 million, the plant expansion would add space for new equipment and renovate existing parts of the building to create a cafeteria and new locker rooms. It would also create more than 100 new jobs.

Ward 3 Councillor Rino Bortolin has said the new jobs created by the plant more than offset the loss of tax revenue to the city.

"In the grand scheme of things, it's not actually that much. It's a lot more important to look at the job creation that we're seeing here," he said. "Over 100 jobs in an industrial corridor in that area in the heart of the city is a really great investment for the community."

According to the City of Windsor, the Economic Revitalization Community Improvement Plan has created more than 2,100 new jobs and retained more than 2,200 jobs across 35 applications since its creation.