DALLAS, Texas — The company that prints Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering cards at a southern Dallas factory is asking the city for help paying for a major expansion, and the Dallas City Council is scheduled to take up the request on Nov. 10.
On the table is as much as $11 million in incentives for Cartamundi at its Mountain Creek plant, 5101 Highland Place Drive, according to a city memo sent to the Economic Development Committee. The money would come as a federal New Markets Tax Credit through the Dallas Development Fund, a nonprofit whose board signed off on the allocation Aug. 10. The fund has $55 million to award this cycle and can issue credits worth up to 39% of a project in a low-income census tract.
According to the memo, the expansion would keep 120 current jobs and create about 130 more full-time positions paying close to $30 an hour on average. Plans call for new printing and finishing machines plus building upgrades to hold them. The memo, signed by Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley, notes the company picked Dallas for the investment even though operating here costs more, and warns that without the credit it would shrink the project or stretch it out over more years.
Cartamundi is based in Belgium and describes itself as one of the world’s leading makers of playing cards, trading cards and board games, with a manufacturing history stretching back more than 250 years. Dallas has been home to its U.S. headquarters since 2009, and the plant here also produces work for the makers of Dungeons & Dragons and Catan. Its North American operations also include the United States Playing Card Company.
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