Masco Cabinetry’s quest to move to Ann Arbor Township to establish the first headquarters for its to-be-combined divisions brings obvious benefits to Washtenaw County.

Job growth is at the top of the list: About 350 people will work at the facility, if the parent company, Masco Corp., receives its pending tax incentives and finalizes the plan.

Most of those people already work for the company in either Adrian or Ohio. But some jobs will be added, with the company saying there’s potential to climb to 450 employees.

Another benefit is the type of jobs that Masco hopes to bring into the former Flint Ink headquarters, located just off Dixboro Road. As a headquarters facility, the jobs will mostly be higher-level management. And a goal of the company is to invest and grow its research and development functions there, which would signal more high-wage positions.

The benefits don’t end: There’s the comparison between promised jobs and actual jobs. This proposal is about existing jobs coming to the county, not a promise that may not be delivered.

And if the deal takes shape, the scope of the company’s move into the vacant Ann Arbor Township promised to pump millions in construction costs into the local economy.

Then, employees making the move to Ann Arbor would be buying and renting homes, shopping in local stores and eating in local restaurants, further sending the benefits through the area’s economy.

Yet there’s a real estate component to the deal, too, that should be celebrated locally, if this deal is finalized.

And there's the fact that a 150,000-square-foot building constructed as a single-tenant facility will come off the market after about three years.

The asking price of $12 million represented only $80 per square foot for the quality building with specialized space - a relative bargain in a normal or robust market. But those “specialized” aspects also made it suitable for a more limited pool of buyers. And in this market, with access to capital limited, a buyer for that kind of real estate became even more rare.

Many in the area speculated that the eventual buyer would be a nearby company seeking space to expand.

And some suggested that the building would end up part of a multi-tenant facility - but only after the market tightened to the point where that could make financial sense.

That could take some time: The region’s office vacancy rate was estimated at 17.62 percent at the end of 2009, according to a study by Swisher Commercial. In the north office market - which includes Plymouth Road and the Ann Arbor Township office centers on the east side of U.S.-23, the rate was 12.61 percent, up from 6.09 percent at the end of 2008.

The north office market may be the most volatile in the city right now. It’s also home to the former Pfizer campus, now part of the University of Michigan. And as U-M consolidates its own offices and determines who moves to that property, we can assume that it's looking at its leased space nearby and weighing whether it’s still needed.

Yet the sector also shows stability in many buildings, like Domino’s Farms. And recent deals - like Con-Way’s move into Earhart Corporate Center - filled some notable vacancies.

That’s the environment surrounding the ex-Flint Ink building, which went onto the market as the company - renamed the Flint Group in 2005 after a merger - moved to Plymouth Township in 2007.

The company’s move finalized the separation between the company and the Flint family, which had retained ownership of the building under the name Arrowhead Partners. It appears that business connections among the family’s contacts and Masco officials may have generated interest in the building.

So far, there are no indications that either the township or the state will deny Masco’s tax incentive request on $7.75 million of eligible investment.

And then we should find out early this week whether the deal will take shape.

Paula Gardner is Business News Director of AnnArbor.com. Contact her at 734-623-2586 or by email. Sign up for the weekly Business Review newsletter, distributed every Thursday, here.