Business Facilities -November 2008

CORPORATE MOVES Utah By Fred Felton Charlotte Pipe: A Utah Success Story hen Charlotte Pipe and Foundry decided to expand, it needed land with easy access to rail and highway transportation. The company found that and more at the largest new rail-served industrial park west of the Mississippi: Port 15 Utah in Cedar City, UT. Charlotte Pipe found “a businessfriendly environment,” says Brad Muller, vice president of marketing, “and a very easy place to do business.” The fast track process Port 15 implemented took only seven months from permits to finished 148,000-square-foot facility on 50 acres that began producing pipe in March of this year. The 107-year-old family-owned company, a market leader based in Charlotte, NC, wanted to sell plastic pipe and fittings to West Coast plumbing distributors. But because pipe is mostly air, it’s too expensive to ship across the country, so Charlotte Pipe needed a manufacturing site within a day-and-a-half-drive of southern California and other population centers on the coast. The company also needed rail service to deliver its primary raw material— PVC resin—a reliable workforce, and room to expand. Charlotte Pipe looked for land around Las Vegas and in Arizona, but found none with rail service, an essential component. It soon learned Utah is the meeting point of three major rail lines, with service to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Port 15 Utah was created by a W Charlotte Pipe and Foundry’s 148,000-square-foot facilty is located in the Port 15 Utah 800-plus acre rail-served industrial park. 8 NOVEMBER 2008 PHOTOS: UTAH GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT group of public and private investors, including: • Utah School Land Trust • State of Utah • Quantum Development Group • Iron County School District • Cedar City/Iron County Office of Economic Development • Rocky Mountain Power “Port 15 is a unique commercial and industrial center”, says Mike Hillis, a managing partner at Commerce CRG, a regional commercial real estate firm marketing the property. Utah’s three interstate highways—two east-west routes, I-70 and I-80, and a north-south route, I-15, which runs through the middle of Cedar City—have made the state a central distribution point along the Canada/Mexico trade corridor. Cedar City Regional Airport, with the second longest runway in Utah, is a key component of regional transportation. The Iron County region and Cedar City are both undergoing population growth, while maintaining a high quality of life and reasonable cost of living. Southern Utah University and Southwest Applied Technology College offer opportunities for higher education in the area. The quality of life is enhanced by such amenities as several nearby national parks, the Utah Shakespearean Festival and the annual Utah Summer Games. The Quantum Development Group created a partnership with the Utah School Land Trust to assemble 800 acres the state owned, which was already served by a Union Pacific rail line connecting Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Not having to purchase land allowed Quantum to develop roads and install fiber optic cable and other infrastructure. Rocky Mountain Power built a new substation to meet power needs, which are significant for Charlotte Pipe.

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Business Facilities -November 2008 Contents First Word Sanpshots Corporate Moves: Utah Kodak Develops a Megasite in Upstate New York Anatomy of a Deal: Studley Finds a New Space for Myspace Metro Spotlight: Johnson City, TN A Renaissance of Growth in Medical Plastics The Lone Star State Flexes Its Muscles Asia: A Portrait of Growth Sky's the Limit for High-tech in Arizona Corporate Moves: Pennsylvania Ohio Leads the Way Alabama's Tide Rolls to the Future IEDC 2008 Award Winners Advertiser Index Introducing Navigator Livexchange

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