"What it really boiled down to was, what was best value for our shareholders," she said. "We had to look at what provided the best long-term benefit to us. Incentives are part of it, but obviously there are operating costs and the whole package. We had to evaluate all this data and look to see if we would be there for a long term or be there 50 years or 100 years, what's going to provide best value for our shareholders for the long term, and Utah came out on top."

The five existing paper-products locations were considered for expansion, and Utah was a finalist for the greenfield option, along with Port of Murrow, Ore., and Walla Walla, Wash., Kuta said.

"We could have built it there or continued to put new lines in existing plants and that could have been at any of the five," she said.

"They were both extremely competitive," she said of the other greenfield option locations. "The people there were very professional, very easy to work with and really delivered everything we asked them to. It was really close, an extremely tough decision. Any of those sites would have worked for us, they were all that good. One came out a little bit better."

"We are very excited about the beginning of this long-term relationship with the state of Utah and Box Elder County," Matthew Donthnier, human resources manager for the new site, said in a prepared statement Wednesday. "We anticipate great opportunities to leverage the local work force and culture (and) to provide superior products to our customers in the western U.S. This is a partnership where we will both win big."

The process of landing P&G's project involved Huntsman, the Governor's Office of Economic Development, the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, Box Elder County, Brigham City and other state and local agencies and utilities.

Much of the process was "hush-hush," with state and local officials dealing on a first-name-only basis with P&G representatives. Gregg Wassmansdorf, vice president and manager of the Location and Incentive Practice at Colliers International, contacted EDCU in September 2006 on behalf of his client, but EDCU did not know it was P&G until this summer.

Wednesday's announcement came eight days after the Governor's Office of Economic Development Board approved a potential $85 million tax-rebate incentive to try to land the plant.

Members of the Governor's Office of Economic Development Board said last week a new P&G facility would ramp up to 500 employees by the year 2012, 900 by 2018 and 1,000 by 2028.

The state incentive is tied to employee pay, they said, although projected wages are more than twice the county median of $21,694.

State documents indicated the plant will represent a $540 million capital investment, including $315 million in the project's first phase.