When Logan city officials learned that Gossner Foods was being courted by two other states because it needs a bigger packing facility, city officials put a somewhat unusual style of "economic development" into action.
Often communities focus entirely on luring new businesses with their economic development programs. In this case, Logan wanted to retain and help an existing firm that already employs 300 people, pays taxes, produces goods and issues paychecks."They've been very cooperative, and we've been appreciative of that," said Greg Rowley, vice president of Gossner Foods.
"It's been a real source of frustration for us that, statewide, they're always looking for ways to help out somebody that's new. But the people here who pay taxes, pay bills and support the local economy don't get treated with the same degree of interest or respect," Rowley said. "I'm glad Logan is doing that. It seems to me to be prudent fiscal policy."
Gossner Foods, which manufactures such things as cheese and whey powder, was planning to spend about $8 million to expand or build a cheese packing facility.
"As the consolidation continues in the supermarket arena, those customers want a full service supplier. They don't want to come here and just pick up Swiss cheese, which is our primary product. They want to pick up a full line of cheese, so we have to have the ability to package a full line," Rowley said.
For months, Logan has researched what would be financially best for Gossner Foods, agreed to widen a road and provide sewer and water, helped with environmental reviews, and generally has done what it could to keep the expansion here.
Gossner was investigating a site in Imperial County, Calif., where it already owns a small plant that sits on 40 acres. Another possibility was location in the Twin Falls area in Idaho where land is fairly cheap.
Logan officials asked the Economic Development Corp. of Utah to do a comparative analysis of the three sites. After examining such things as payroll costs, the price of electricity and other factors, the EDCU reported that Idaho was similar to Utah, as far as operating costs over a 10 year period, but California was more expensive. Then the city dipped into its "wetlands bank" and gave Gossner credit for two acres of wetlands in another part of the city so Gossner could fill in two wetland acres on its 10-acre property that will be used for the building expansion.
Logan is creating a wetlands area by scraping dirt off of some city-owned property to use for cover on the city's landfill. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which supervises such things, allows these kinds of trade-offs if a compensating wetland area can be found or created. The Corp of Engineers was satisfied with this arrangement and issued a permit.
Logan's third step was to examine its infrastructure and come up with $175,000 of assistance: $60,000 worth of land from the wetlands bank, and $115,000 to widen a road and bring water and sewer to the site. The city also is annexing a parcel of land now under county jurisdiction so it can provide these services.
This seems like an awful lot of effort for a business -- and city officials agree that it is. But they say it's worth it.
"Gossner is a core industry in our area, and it's directly tied to agriculture," said Nevin Limburg, Logan's director of economic development.
Gossner buys buys $45 million worth of raw milk from farms throughout Utah. It currently is processing 1 million pounds of milk every day and plans to handle more after the expansion. The project will add 60,000 square feet to its packing area and will produce 150 new jobs over the next five years. Wages will be about 20 percent above Cache County's average.
Limburg said the county has no unemployment problems but does have trouble with under employment. "Our per-capita income is below the state and national average. We've been working hard to try to correct that. This kind of expansion helps us put a dent in that."
Finally, Limburg said, there's an element of loyalty involved. Gossner Foods has been good for the city and state for years -- why not reward the existing businesses?
"There hasn't been any objection," Limburg said.