Nucor to add Utah site

Steel company Nucor Corp. will forge an even stronger relationship with Box Elder County, announcing Thursday it will build a $27 million plant there that employs more than 200 workers.

The new facility in Brigham City will produce metal products used in the construction industry and will join three other Nucor operations in the county: a 340-employee Vulcraft joist plant and connected 30-worker cold finish operation also in Brigham City, plus a bar steel mill in Plymouth.

Hamilton Lott Jr., executive vice president for Nucor, said the new facility will be just east of the company's existing Brigham City operations.

Nucor, based in Charlotte, N.C., had said in May it would build its fourth metal building systems plant in the western part of the country. Able to produce about 45,000 tons of metal building systems and components annually, the facility's operations are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2008.

"We've had a manufacturing facility in Brigham City for 25 years — our Vulcraft facility — and we've found Brigham City to be a good place to work and to live, and we're confident we can hire a good work force there," Lott said.

The Governor's Office of Economic Development Board last December approved a financial incentive in an attempt to land the new facility. Although it did not name the company at the time, the board approved a tax rebate of up to $2,353,350 over a 10-year period for 200-plus jobs paying twice the county median.

Lott said the plant likely will have 75 percent of its eventual work force in place when it opens "and then we'll ramp up from there." As for worker pay, "I think they'll have the opportunity to earn a total earnings of maybe $50,000," he said.

"We are pleased that Nucor has decided to build a new production facility in Box Elder County," Jason Perry, executive director of the GOED, said Thursday. "Nucor has been a great corporate citizen, and this expansion will bring valuable jobs to the state."

The Brigham City Redevelopment Agency also developed tax increment financing of about $1.3 million for land acquisition, about $1.4 million for site preparation and about $1.4 million for infrastructure improvements.

"We're just so excited," Brigham City Mayor Lou Ann Christensen said Thursday, adding that the city worked with Nucor for 18 months. The project was code-named "Steely Dan" as the company worked with the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, she said.

"For a long time, we didn't know who 'Steely Dan' was, but we're thrilled this is turning our direction, and we're the winner."

Christensen said Nucor is "a quality company" that invests heavily in employee education and works to become involved in the community.