Yogurt maker looking to locate facility in Carson City, bringing up to 1,500 new jobs
Submitted by admin on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 10:45am
This is a story that has been flying under the radar for a few months now, told to me in confidential discussions with city officials. But it looks like a newspaper in Twin Falls, Idaho has put the story out in the open, since that community is also vying to land the facility.
"Chobani, a New York-based manufacturer of Greek yogurt, has visited Twin Falls as well as Carson City, Nev., in recent months in its efforts to find a spot for a facility near the West Coast," according to the story.
The story also quotes Carson City Manager Larry Werner:
Larry Werner, city manager for Carson City, said his community is in the running for the yogurt plant as well, and is still waiting to hear back from Chobani.
“We thought it was going to Twin Falls, but we’ve not been told ‘no’ or ‘yes,’” he said.
Werner said, under the scenarios he was told about, the potential plant’s employee count would begin at about 400 or 500 workers and gradually grow to about 1,500.
One of the issues that was discussed around here over the past months is the impact a plant like this would have on the city's water and sewer systems. I was told the plant's requirements could take up nearly all of the excess capacity of these systems.
The possibility of the company locating in Carson City also had an indirect role in the debate over the Nugget Project. You might remember a late development in this project was using newly-raised landfill fees to pay for part of the city's share, instead of the 1/8th cent sales tax increase that had been on the table before that.
I was told privately at the time that part of the impetus for not using sales taxes for this was to keep that 1/8th cent option open if it might be needed to increase capacity of the city's water and sewer systems to accommodate the Chobani yogurt plant. The city is prohibited from raising sales taxes more than 1/8th cent before hitting the state-mandated cap.
Of course, it also helped that not raising taxes was politically helpful in getting the controversial Nugget Project approved.
Now that this story is out of in the open, we hope to learn more about the details. Stay tuned.
