The Colorado Springs City Council Tuesday approved $543,000 in tax rebates as part of a $2 million incentive package to persuade a California-based medical device manufacturer to build a plant on the city’s far north side expected to employ 250 within five years. Bal Seal Engineering Inc. already employs 39 at a plant near Garden of the Gods Road to manufacture custom-engineered, high-performance electrical contacts and seals used in pacemakers, defibrillators and other implantable medical devices as well as planetary rovers used in space and oceans. The Foothills Ranch, Calif., company plans to build a 137,000-square-foot plant next year on 17 acres southwest of Voyager Parkway and Republic Drive, east of Interstate 25, that would begin operation in 2013. Bal Seal plans to spend $25.4 million building the plant and another $19.5 million on manufacturing equipment and other furnishings for the facility and will add another 211 employees to its Colorado Springs payroll within five years, according to a memo sent Tuesday to council members by Mayor Steve Bach.
