Dura-Line expanding Utah facilities, workforce

Brice Wallace 

A telecommunications infrastructure company will expand in Utah, quadrupling its workforce total and growing its manufacturing space tenfold.

Dura-Line LLC, part of Orbia’s Connectivity Solutions and currently with operations in North Salt Lake, will expand and add two facilities in the Salt Lake City area.

The Tennessee-based company manufactures and distributes conduit, FuturePath, cable-in-conduit and accessories that create physical pathways for fiber and other network technologies connecting cities, homes and people.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

“We looked at several locations throughout the western U.S. for this expansion, but with our long history of success with our North Salt Lake facility, it just made sense for Dura-Line to put down even deeper roots,” Dale Wilson, Dura-Line’s vice president of sales and marketing for the U.S. and Canada, said in a prepared statement.

During a meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board, Daniel Wallis, Dura-Line senior project and facilities engineer, said the company’s manufacturing footprint will increase 10 times over that of its existing North Salt Lake facility, and the company will grow from the current 100 employees to at least 400.

“That’ll occur quite quickly once we open locations, because we need employees to get going right away,” he said, adding that the project’s capital investment will be “very large … even beyond just the buildings themselves.” Go Utah documents indicate the investment will be $73 million.

The company was founded in 1971 and has had operations in North Salt Lake since 1995. The company expects to have 20 manufacturing locations globally by the end of 2023, mostly in the U.S., he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of change over the years, unprecedented obviously with the 5G service, Internet of Things, remote work and isolations that we’ve all experienced. … Over the next five years, we expect the market for fiber networks to grow, like, 10 percent per year, and that’s just in North America. So Dura-Line has aggressively pursued expansion throughout the West. That’s where a lot of the growth is, so that’s where we’ve been looking.”

Dura-Line’s largest customers — AT&T, Verizon, Charter, Comcast, Google and Facebook — “all look to us for their growth expectations, to be able to provide this service to them,” Wallis said.

The Go Utah board approved a tax credit incentive for the company, based on the creation of 62 high-paying jobs over five years. New total wages during that time tied to those jobs is estimated at $24 million, and new state tax revenue from the project is estimated at $9.6 million. The incentive is 15 percent of the new taxes generated, or about $1.4 million. The new jobs are expected to pay an average of $83,703.

“We’ve had a great relationship with the state of Utah during our presence, basically a quarter of a century that we’ve been here in North Salt Lake,” Wallis said. “We feel strongly that this is the best location to expand. Many factors fall into that, but [it’s] definitely the best location. … We definitely appreciate all that Utah has done for Dura-Line over the years, and we really want to continue our partnership for years to come, to be honest with you.”

Go Utah documents indicate the expansion will cover three locations, including two involving the construction of new buildings. Some of the growth will happen in Salt Lake City’s Northwest Quadrant.

“Dura-Line is an amazing company. [We’re] happy to have them as part of our community,” Peter Makowski, recruitment and retention manager for Salt Lake City’s Department of Economic Development, told the Go Utah board.

“Dura-Line is an incredibly important piece for what we’re trying to do in the inland port as we try and kind of reinvent the west side of Salt Lake City, not just around a logistics focus but really trying to bring things that add economic value and create economic multipliers,” said Ben Hart, executive director of the Utah Inland Port Authority. “That’s exactly what Dura-Line does.”

“Dura-Line’s quality conduit connects individuals and communities to each other and economic opportunities,” Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “I’m pleased Dura-Line is expanding in Utah, and I look forward to watching the company grow.”

“We’re delighted that a world-class manufacturer like Dura-Line would select the Utah Inland Port Authority for its latest expansion,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “We look forward to seeing the continued growth of Dura-Line’s operations across several Utah locations.”

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