Business News : Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Company rules out steel plant for Washington
by Seattle Times staff and The Associated Press
OLYMPIA - Nucor Steel announced yesterday that
Washington state is out of the running for a new
steel plant.
The North Carolina-based company had
considered Longview and Grays Harbor County as
possible sites for a $360 million plant in
Washington.
Nucor, a Fortune 500 company with $4 billion in
annual sales and the nation's third-largest
steelmaker, also was considering Clatskanie, on
the Oregon side of the Columbia River, and Coos
Bay in Southwest Oregon.
In December, Nucor announced that Hoquiam was
no longer in the running for the steel plant that
would have brought up to 500 good-paying jobs -
up to $60,000 a year - to the economically
depressed area. The company decided that a
400-acre site on the Hoquiam waterfront, next to a
federal wildlife refuge, did not have enough room
to accommodate its plans.
West Coast Project Manager Larry Roos said
yesterday Nucor needs to build a plant in a state
that can offer the company significant tax breaks.
"This is especially true on the West Coast, where
U.S. raw steel producers will be competing with
low-priced Asian steel," Roos said.
"Oregon, California and a myriad of other states
have seen the benefit of trying to revitalize their
rural economies and have passed tax-incentive
packages to attract capital investment firms," he
said.
The Oregon Legislature already has passed into
law a package that would translate to at least $57
million in property-tax exemptions and corporate
income-tax credits for Nucor over 20 years.
Gov. Gary Locke proposed a set of tax breaks that
were designed to match Oregon's package of
incentives. The tax breaks would have started at
about $10 million a year, and would have given a
15-year waiver on sales taxes, a 15-year
property-tax exemption and tax credits based on the
number of new workers hired.
Over the life of the deal, the package would have
been worth more than $100 million in tax
abatements to Nucor.
Locke's proposal led to a debate in the Legislature
about whether to offer similar tax breaks to
manufacturers to bring jobs to 22 economically
depressed counties. Republican leaders - most
from urban Washington but some from rural areas -
contend market forces, not tax breaks and other
incentives, will bring jobs to rural Washington.
Nucor officials said last week they were still
considering Longview or Coos Bay, Ore., as a
possible site. Recent news reports indicated that
Nucor already had dropped Longview, and
yesterday the company confirmed the decision.
It was not clear whether Nucor has settled on the
Oregon site. Roos could not be reached for
additional comment.