'Giant' not moving to Provo now

PROVO — Hal Wing won't build his Little Giant Ladders in Provo after all.

Wing Enterprises agreed to leave Springville last summer because Provo had offered multimillion-dollar incentives, but now Wing says the company doesn't have the luxury of waiting for the construction of a new plant.

"Eighteen months ago, we were making 19 ladders a day," he said. "The week before Christmas we made 2,800 ladders a day. By mid-February, I need to be making 6,500 ladders a day."

To keep up with the explosive demand for the Little Giant, the company has agreed to lease a building in a city Wing wasn't ready to disclose.

Some questioned Wing's $25,000 contribution to Provo Mayor Lewis Billings' re-election campaign last fall, wondering aloud whether Wing was returning a favor to Billings for the building incentives his administration was providing.

"The irony is not only wasn't I getting a favor, I'm not even going to Provo," Wing said. "Now those people who said I was getting a favor have to eat crow. That stuff's awfully tough and stringy."

He revealed Tuesday that months after he offered to help Billings with his campaign, Billings asked him to host a fund-raiser with a goal of $20,000. A misunderstanding led his assistant to tell invitees that Wing would match their contributions, something Wing didn't know about until he announced at the dinner that the event had raised $27,000 and someone asked if that was with or without his match.

"I was blown away," he said. "I kept my word even though I wasn't the one who gave it, but I was beguiled into giving that money. There couldn't be anything farther from hanky or panky going on."

The loss of Wing Enterprises is blow to Provo's new Mountain Vista Business Park, formerly known as Ironton. The manufacturing plant wouldn't have generated sales tax and the incentives would have blunted other economic gains to the city for a decade, but the company's role as an anchor in the business park was expected to be a boon.

"We were so very excited to have them come and be one of two major anchors to that park," Billings said Tuesday during his annual state-of-the-city address. "We're still delighted with Novatech, the other anchor."

Wing is disappointed his company's growth won't allow him the luxury of building a manufacturing plant specifically for his ladders.

"We were flat giddy over the fact we'd be able, for the first time in 32 years, to take a clean sheet of paper and design a building exactly the way we wanted it. Instead, we'll have to take another building designed to do something for someone else and make it fit our needs."

Wing left open the possibility of moving to Provo someday.