Conroe City Council unanimously expanded Conroe Park North Industrial Park's foreign trade zone and incorporated three new out-of-city municipal utility districts totaling more than 3,000 acres at its Feb. 25 meeting in a growth-motivated push. Resolutions to support legislation creating all three new out-of-city MUDs—161, 162 and 163—were approved unanimously. The MUDs are adjacent to each other and total more than 3,000 acres, all owned by Denbury Onshore. East of the city of Woodloch along Hwy. 242 and FM 1314, the future development could bring more than 12,000 rooftops, according to Conroe Director of Community Development Nancy Mikeska. "[The developer] will come back to [City Council] for final formulation after the state does their part, and offer a strategic partnership at some point," Mikeska said. "It's important to note there are more than 3,000 acres in these three MUDs—one of the largest ones I've ever done." As for Conroe Park North's foreign trade zone, it was first established in 2001, but the park has added two large parcels of land since then, according to Danielle Scheiner, executive director of the Conroe Economic Development Council. The foreign trade zone acts as a deferment of tariffs on imported materials, until the time when the finished manufactured goods leave the zone and are passed to the customer. "Originally, [the zone] was the original boundaries of the industrial park," Scheiner said. "We're going to be making the application to the board to extend the physical boundary of the zone to encompass all of Conroe Park North." Council also unanimously approved a tax abatement agreement with Houston-based Pipeline Packaging Corp. which recently acquired the Conroe-based Sooner Container. Instead of moving the Conroe location down to Houston, the corporation chose to move the Houston business to Conroe, adding 10 jobs with an annual $875,000 payroll, and a $7 million investment to the industrial park with the construction of a nearly 90,000-square-foot distribution warehouse.