KraftMaid Cabinetry confirmed Thursday that it will spend more than $106 million to build a new West Jordan manufacturing facility and hire about 1,300 workers over the next four years in what has been called one of the biggest deals in the region.

The 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility will be built at 9800 S. 6200 West in the Bingham Business Park in West Jordan.

KraftMaid chief executive Tom Chieffe said work should begin on the facility in the second quarter of 2005, with an anticipated launch in the summer of 2006.

The facility ultimately will employ about 1,300 workers, Chieffe said. The company is looking to fill jobs in everything from production to information technology to human resources.

In what was a highly competitive wooing process, Chieffe said Utah offered the right quality and quantity of labor, as well as logistical advantages and, perhaps not insignificant, an economic incentives package.

Last October, Utah's Board of Business and Economic Development approved a $2.25 million incentive to entice the company, at that time unnamed, to put operations in Utah. The package included incentives for jobs paying above the county median wage, constructing a facility, training costs, and a job transfer program to facilitate the transfer of "corporate culture and values" to the Utah facility. All incentives were conditioned upon the company keeping operations in Utah for at least five years.

In addition to the incentives, Chieffe also lauded Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for getting personally involved in the process in late 2004, when Huntsman was governor-elect.

"He took the time to meet with us and really made this project happen," Chieffe said.

Huntsman attributed the success to a "team effort."

"I simply did what a governor is supposed to do, and that's to come in and build upon so much good work that was done by the mayor and the City Council and local economic development people" he said.

Speaking about the KraftMaid deal, Huntsman said the company's decision reflects positively on Utah and its future.

"This, for our state, is terribly important. For our people it is terribly important, because this is how we pay the bills going forward," Huntsman said. "This is about expanding the 'pie,' such that we have more to cover the needs of all of those kids who are part of the emerging generation, who need to be educated. And the needs of mobility, by way of roads and transportation."

KraftMaid's promised investment "represents one of the top five manufacturing opportunities in the last several years for job creation in the western United States," Huntsman said.

And it won't stop with KraftMaid, said West Jordan Mayor Bryan Holladay.

"We've already heard indication that because of the quality of company that they are, the premier employees they have and the wages they pay, it's going to be a competitive market," he said. "For West Jordan, it will also have another ripple effect, in the companies that join KraftMaid — their suppliers and different types of companies associated with them. We believe it's also going to have a good effect on our city as well as surrounding cities."

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