An Iowa-based meat processing company whose plans for building a 500-employee facility in Weber County were derailed by a wetlands issue nonetheless will put the facility in Utah.

West Liberty Foods LLC announced Friday it will put its fourth facility in Tremonton, Box Elder County.

The complex will feature a 93,000-square-foot fabrication facility and 74,000-square-foot slice facility, which will be able to process more than 100 million pounds of protein products annually at full production, the company said.

West Liberty Foods also will continue its alliance with Millard Refrigerated Services of Omaha, Neb., to build an adjacent 50,000-square-foot cold storage warehouse that will include both refrigerated and frozen items.

The new facility is expected to create 500 jobs. Groundbreaking is scheduled for August, with production beginning in July 2007.

"I couldn't be more pleased about West Liberty Foods' decision to make this very significant investment and expand its operations in Utah," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said in a prepared statement.

"This is an exciting time for our company as we branch out to the Western marketplace," said Ed Garrett, president and chief executive officer of West Liberty Foods, in a prepared statement. "The ready-to-eat chicken line will provide us the opportunity to introduce and service new product lines to our current customers."

He lauded the efforts of Tremonton city officials, the state of Utah, the Economic Development Corp. of Utah and the Box Elder County Economic Development for rallying behind the project. "We couldn't have asked for better support," Garrett said.

In April, West Liberty Foods announced it would build a $50 million plant in Pleasant View after the Governor's Office of Economic Development board officially approved $2 million in tax incentives. But less than a week following the announcement, Pleasant View city issued a news release stating that wetlands existed throughout a large portion of the Pleasant View Business Park, the site where West Liberty hoped to build its plant.

The incentives were approved based upon the new jobs paying a certain level above the county median wage, the company keeping operations in Utah for at least 10 years and offering health insurance to its employees.

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Contributing: Dave Anderton

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com