Utah plays waiting game with Procter & Gamble

Utah is playing a waiting game with Procter & Gamble Co., hoping that the Cincinnati-based consumer products giant will bite on a financial lure approved Tuesday and put a manufacturing plant in Box Elder County.

Meanwhile, a company representative on Wednesday said that Utah had "delivered everything we've asked."

The Governor's Office of Economic Development Board approved a potential $85 million tax-rebate incentive in hopes that P&G will build a paper products plant in unincorporated Box Elder County, perhaps near Brigham City.

If Utah gets the plant, it would start with 300 workers and increase to 500 by 2012 and 900 by 2018, putting it quickly among the county's largest employers. The facility would eventually have 1,000 employees and staff pay would be at least twice the county median.

But P&G has options — Missouri and California among them, according to the Utah board's chairman — and Utah is likely not alone in offering a financial incentive.

A company representative on Wednesday declined to answer specific questions about the possibility of Utah landing the facility.

"Utah, as with all of the states we are considering, has been very professional and delivered everything we've asked," said the representative, who asked to remain anonymous. "We have made no final decisions with regard to our manufacturing operations that we can share at this time."

The competitiveness of Utah's incentive is anyone's guess. Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, said Tuesday that Utah does not "know what other states are doing."

A Deseret Morning News telephone message to the California Department of Housing and Community Development was not returned Wednesday. Keener Tiffin, communications specialist with the Missouri Department of Economic Development, said that state does not "discuss pending deals."

Also, it was unclear Wednesday whether Missouri and California are the only other options being considered by the company or whether other states have offered incentives.

Washington also could be in the mix. Incentive officials in Utah used the code name "Project Gold Rush" when referring to P&G, and KEPR-TV in Pasco, Wash., in late August reported that commissioners in Walla Walla had used the term "Project Goldrush" for a potential "consumer goods manufacturer" facility on 1,200 acres of farmland near the town of Wallula.