PROVO — It sounds like a joke:
Why did the ladder company cross the road?
Well, it's not a joke — it's what's happening at Wing Enterprises, which is leaving its longtime Springville site for a spot at a nearby Provo business center.
Wing Enterprises Inc., a Springville-based ladder manufacturing company, has announced that it will become the first tenant in Provo's 300-acre expansion at the Mountain Vista Business Center on State Street.
The company's new digs, a 300,000-square-foot campus made up of three buildings, will replace the current facility, a 96,000 square-foot building that is almost directly across the street from the site where the new building will stand.
Hal Wing, the owner of Wing Enterprises and former Springville mayor, said he would have liked to stay in the city, but couldn't reach a financial agreement that would have convinced him to keep the plant there.
"We couldn't get Springville to concede anything," Wing said.
Wing said he asked City Administrator Layne Long for some slack on some city requirements. For example, he said, the city would not bend on landscaping codes around the proposed new building. Also, he said, the city wouldn't sell or lease land they own near the new plant that Wing wanted to use for parking.
Long said he tried to keep the company in Springville — its home for 32 years — but couldn't find a way.
"From Springville's perspective, we absolutely would have loved to have them continue to be part of our industrial park," Long said in a phone message left with the Deseret Morning News.
"We explored several different options, different properties and such that may have worked with this company, but for whatever business reasons, they decided to go to Provo."
Wing said those business reasons included a much lower rate on utilities and a deferred payment plan for the land.
Leland Gamette, Provo's economic development director, said setting up shop in Provo will save Wing Enterprises about 50 percent on its power rates because Provo has lower rates. The company will also have 10 years — interest free — to pay the $2.4 million purchase price for the land.
"This is a very dynamic, growing business," Gamette said. "It's a business we wanted to keep in Utah Valley and in the Utah economy."
Gamette said the company will not make a huge impact on the number of jobs in Provo since it will be bringing its own employees already. He did not have any projections for the contributions the company would make to Provo's tax base.
However, the company does not sell ladders directly at its headquarters, so any tax contribution, besides its property taxes, would likely be small.
Wing's most important contribution, Gamette said, would be its role in helping the business park's expansion.
"What's critical to us," he said, "is we think Wing will play a similar role (in Mountain Vista) to what Novell played in the development of the East Bay Center. . . . (Novell) fast-tracked that development."
Wing has said he plans to add 200 jobs when he moves to the new facility. He presently employs between 550 and 600 people.
Wing said he had to pursue a new location because his current location is just much too small.
"We're basically doing about eight to 10 times the amount of production that we started with here," Wing said.
The company's annual sales have grown from $20 million to about $200 million.
Wing, a former mayor of Springville, said he has no hard feelings toward the city. He said he was puzzled that the mayor and City Council would not meet with him, but said the move was ultimately about Provo's incentives, not a personal disagreement with Springville's leaders.
"If (Springville) can't do it, they can't do it," Wing said. "But they have to understand that I have to go."
E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com