Brice Wallace
The Utah Inland Port Authority board has approved its first corporate incentive, aimed at having Northrop Grumman manufacture composite structures for rocket motor cases in Salt Lake City’s Northwest Quadrant.
The incentive is in the form of a 10-percent property tax rebate over 25 years.
The project is expected to result in several hundred manufacturing jobs. Ben Hart, UIPA’s executive director, pegged the number at 500 jobs, but at a recent board meeting, a company official said it would be 100 to 250 because the project is part of a 500-job expansion of the company’s Bacchus plant.
UIPA estimates the project’s capital expenditure at $30 million for the 300,000-square-foot Copper Crossing building and $80 million to convert it from logistics/distribution to advanced manufacturing.
“When we’re talking about creating real economic inertia, it’s not warehouse/distribution that’s going to move the needle,” Hart said at the board meeting in which the incentive was approved. “It’s advanced manufacturing. It’s forward-facing jobs. It’s really companies that you can build an entire local community and economy around, and Northop is exactly in that boat, so I think we’re ecstatic to be able to work with them on this potential opportunity.”
UIPA board members and staffers hailed the project as a perfect fit for the Northwest Quadrant.
“In terms of what we’re looking for in the Northwest Quadrant, [it’s] just a perfect match of a targeted industry that we had identified in our project area plan and budget, very much aligned with our focus — high-skill, high-wage jobs, advanced manufacturing type of work, really increase the property values, increase the number of good jobs in the area,” Benn Buys, UIPA deputy director and chief financial officer, told the board before the incentive vote.
“Obviously, Northrop Grumman has a huge presence in the state. [We’re] Really excited to have them be a bigger part of the state in the Northwest Quadrant.”
Andy Pierucci, Mountain West corporate manager of state and local affairs for Northrop Grumman, said the company would be making solid rocket motors for the United Launch Alliance and its Amazon Kuiper satellite constellation.
Based in Colorado, ULA provides launch services, manufacturing and operating rocket vehicles. In April 2022, it announced that that Amazon had selected its Vulcan rocket for 38 launches supporting deployment for Project Kuiper, an Amazon initiative to increase global broadband access through a “constellation” of 3,236 advanced satellites in low Earth orbit.
“I just want to thank Northrop Grumman for what they do for the state as a whole,” Mike Schultz, a UIPA board member and a representative in the Utah Legislature, said at the board meeting. “I know they’re one of the largest if not the largest private employer in the state, and having them and their presence out in the Northwest Quadrant is actually what we have envisioned as far as types of high-paying manufacturing jobs in that area, and so thank you and [we’re] excited to see proposals like this coming forward. I think it meets the mission.”
Jerry Stevenson, a board member and state senator, said the Northrop Grumman project is “important.”
“Northrop Grumman’s been a big player in the state of Utah for a long time … a major player, and they’ve been a very good corporate player for a long while. It’s good to see them expand here. These are great jobs, and the jobs that they do create are amazing and they continue to grow in the state of Utah.”
Victoria Petro, a nonvoting UIPA board member and a Salt Lake City Council member, also hailed the project.
“I’m thrilled that we’re using this money to create jobs that have economic mobility for my neighbors, who are historically either new Americans or the blue-collar workforce that literally keeps Utah running at all times,” Petro said.