Keep cool: Incentives bringing two big projects

Brice Wallace 

A company that keeps stuff cold, plus a company that makes insulating panels to keep stuff cold, have been awarded state incentives for projects that are expected to have $158.8 million in project spending and lead to a total of 156 new jobs.

Lineage Logistics Holdings LLC and Nucor Insulated Panel Group LLC made the project announcements after being approved for tax credit incentives by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

The $125 million Lineage project in Grantsville, Tooele County, is expected to create up to 96 high-paying jobs over the next five years. The $33.8 million Nucor project in Brigham City, Box Elder County, is expected to generate up to 60 high-paying jobs during that same timeframe.

Michigan-based Lineage is the world’s largest warehousing and logistics company, providing a range of third-party solutions for customers in various industries. The temperature-controlled logistics company has more than 23,000 employees across more than 400 facilities in 20 countries, totaling over 2 billion cubic feet of capacity to support customers ranging from Fortune 500 companies to regional food producers.

Lineage handles and stores an assortment of products while also acting as a distribution partner for some of the largest and fastest-growing food retailers. The company has identified a site at the Lakeview Business Park in Grantsville as a potential location for a new, 220,000-square-foot cold storage facility that will have about 12,000 square feet of office space on two stories, with the rest being single-story space to handle the food storage part of its business.

“We look forward to expanding our presence in Utah to offer customers in the region greater capacity and logistics solutions,” Brian McGowan, chief network optimization officer for Lineage, said in a prepared statement. “The city of Grantsville has been a great partner in the project’s development, and we look forward to offering high-quality jobs to the city’s skilled residents.”

The Go Utah board approved a tax credit of up to $1.16 million over five years for the project, which is expected to generate total wages of $22.5 million during that time. The average wage would be $56,774. The project is projected to generate new state tax revenue of over $4.6 million over five years.

Senior Manager Bridget Green said Lineage stores and moves 40 percent of the food product in the U.S. It has a cold-storage warehouse in Tremonton and a company-owned building in Salt Lake City is fully leased to a customer.

“The Salt Lake area is a booming market. It’s a growth market,” she told the Go Utah board.

“Lineage Logistics Holdings is a great new addition in Grantsville,” Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “The company is a premier leader in temperature-controlled warehousing and logistics, playing a role in much of the food we eat every day.

“Along with being a key component to the food supply chain, the company has also demonstrated its charitable efforts. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lineage donated 115 million meals to people in need. The company also is committed to energy efficiency and expanding its use of solar power in its facilities.”

“Utah is a strategic choice to help Lineage Logistics reach western U.S. customers, reinforcing our position as the ‘Crossroads of the West,’” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “We welcome Lineage Logistics’ expansion to a shoulder county of the Wasatch Front, with high capital investment and a job count that allows for paced and steady growth.”

Nucor Insulated Panel Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of North Carolina-based steel producer Nucor Corp. that manufactures and sells insulated metal panels. Nucor and its affiliates currently operate approximately a dozen locations in Utah that employ more than 1,600 people. The project would result in Box Elder County’s fourth major Nucor facility. It has Nucor Building Systems and Vulcraft in Brigham City and Nucor Steel Utah in Plymouth.

Insulated metal panels can be used for all types of structures, especially in the commercial, industrial, manufacturing and cold storage industries.

A Nucor consultant, Christian Buhrer of Moore & VanAllen, told the Go Utah board that Nucor Building Systems will be a major customer of Nucor Insulated Panel Group.

Nucor Corp. entered the insulated metal panels business with the 2019 acquisition of TrueCore LLC, located in South Carolina. Last year, Nucor completed its acquisition of Cornerstone Building Brands’ insulated metal panels business for about $1 billion. The Centria and Metl-Span brands acquired from Cornerstone are now a part of the Nucor Insulated Panel Group, which also includes Nucor’s TrueCore business.

“We bought that (Cornerstone business) and now we’re ready to continue to expand it, even after we invested all that money in a separate business line (TrueCore) that’s already been established,” Buhrer said. “So we see very, very big growth in this, and that’s why we’re trying to move forward with it.

“We’ve had great experiences there in Box Elder County,” Buhrer added. “We like to think that we’re a great citizen there. Our people have been working there for years.”

Paul Larsen, economic development director for Brigham City, noted that the city has a lot of experience with Nucor.

“We know the quality of that company,” he told the board. “We know that they are people of their word and we know that they will be great corporate citizens here, so we’re very excited to have TrueCore join the other Nucor facilities here in Box Elder County.”

The Go Utah board approved a tax credit of up to $561,164 for the company, based on new state tax revenue over more than $2.2 million over five years. New total wages are projected to be nearly $13.8 million during that time, with an average wage of $69,016.

“We want to thank Nucor for once again choosing Utah,” Hemmert said in a prepared statement. “Nucor Insulated Panel Group locating in Utah provides several benefits, including significant investment in Box Elder County and new high-paying jobs for Utahns. We’re proud to house Nucor’s fourth major facility in Utah and hope that the company will continue to expand here.”

“Utah excels in advanced manufacturing, and we congratulate Nucor Insulated Panel Group on the growth and success they’ve found in our state,” Foxley said. “This is an important win for Box Elder County and for continued investment in communities off the Wasatch Front.”

Go Utah does not provide upfront cash incentives. Each year that an incentivized compnaymeets the obligations in its contract with the state, it will qualify to receive a portion of the new, additional taxes the company paid to the state.{/mprestriction}