Tooele County could become the site of a $300 million specialty metals plant with 150 jobs, but Utah is facing competition to land the facility.

The Governor's Office of Economic Development Board on Friday approved a $3.25 million tax-rebate incentive to get Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Technologies Inc. to put the plant in Tooele County. If the plant ends up in Utah, the average job would pay more than $45,000, or more than twice the county median.

"I think this is a great company," said board member Mark Howell, who leads the board's business recruitment committee. "It's a manufacturing company. These are great jobs, and they'll train people and be great for Tooele County, and a large capital investment. It's going to bring in other jobs in construction work in the process."

Board documents indicate the company is considering another location in the United States for the facility.

"The major concern that came out of the committee was that we'd like to see what other states are offering," Howell said. "We were not able to. There is some competition from other states, but we were not able to really define that as well as we might have liked. But I guess that the factor that really drove it home is the jobs and the investment of $300 million."

The Utah incentive would be in the form of a return on 20 percent of new state revenues over a 10-year period. The salary threshold would be at least 175 percent of the county median, and the company would be required to keep operations in Utah at least 10 years.

Allegheny, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, had sales of $3.54 billion in 2005, up 30 percent from 2004, and 2006 first-quarter revenues were more than $1 billion, up 18 percent from the prior-year quarter. Net income last year was $361.4 million. First-quarter 2006 net income totaled $102.5 million.

Allegheny's approximately 9,300 full-time workers worldwide produce various types of specialty metals for several industries. It has production facilities, service centers and sales offices in the U.S. and 17 other countries.

Allegheny Technologies was created in 1999 when Allegheny Teledyne — formed through the combination of Allegheny Ludlum Corp. and Teledyne Inc. in 1996 — reconfigured to spin off Teledyne Technologies Inc. and Water Pik Technologies as free-standing public companies.

Allegheny Ludlum dates back to the Revolutionary War, according to ATI's Web site, with an early operation supplying Continental Army cannonballs. Its stainless steel was used on the Chrysler Building in New York City.

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com