City funds sought for high-tech lab

Plan would kick in $250K from economic development fund

By M eg Bri TT on-M ehlisch

PITTSFIELD — City officials propose giving a $250,000 grant to a local business they say is putting Pittsfield on the map in the field of electromagnetics.

Mayor Linda Tyer submitted a proposal to the City Council last month asking to use $250,000 of the city’s economic development funds to support the expansion of the Electro Magnetic Applications Inc. lab in Pittsfield, provided it meets job-creation goals.

City councilors will decide if they support the mayor’s recommendation at the Jan. 30 meeting of the community and economic development subcommittee. A small opposition is already mounting to the move.

Glenda Wichechki, a resident who spoke during the open microphone portion of a recent council meeting, urged the council to vote down the proposal.

“I don’t think the city should be purchasing equipment for private companies,” Wichechki said. “The common sense place for a loan of this size would be a bank.”

“The city is not a bank,” she added.

Tyer’s request and a grant application by the company lay out a plan for how EMA plans to expand.

EMA, which is headquartered in Colorado, established an office at the Berkshire Innovation Center in 2019. The company was the center’s first tenant.

The Pittsfield lab tested materials and equipment used on manned and unmanned spacecraft in a facility that replicates radiation conditions of outer space.

This facility helped the lab secure contracts with NASA, Department of Defense contractors and international space agencies, according to the grant application.

The company received a five-year tax increment finance agreement from the city — giving it a break on an estimated $65,774 of its personal property taxes — as well as $140,000 in economic development funds in the first year of operation.

EMA also received state tax credits from the Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council.

Since opening, the full-time employee count has grown from one to eight, with the average starting salary above $60,000 per year.

The company said in its application that business has been so successful that it moved a portion of its operations into an office space at 66 West St. A report from the city’s community development director included in the application said EMA grossed $7 million in revenue in 2021.

The company says it’s now taking steps to advance into the emerging field of “metalenses” — thin, hyper-efficient lenses used for imaging, medicine, terrain mapping, radar and augmented and virtual reality.

In the application to the city, EMA writes that over the next three years it plans to invest $3 million to build a metalenses characterization chamber