CLEARFIELD -- With taxpayers' help, Alliant Techsystems plans to open a new Davis County facility to produce aircraft composite structures and eventually add 800 jobs.
ATK President Mark DeYoung announced the company's new Composites Center of Excellence at a Thursday news conference in Clearfield City Hall.
"This new facility will be at the center of ATK's continued expansion into commercial aircraft for both domestic and international markets," said DeYoung, an Ogden native.
Flanked by Gov. Gary Herbert, Clearfield Mayor Don Wood and others, DeYoung formally accepted a 20-year state tax credit for the company expansion at a meeting of the governor's economic development board.
ATK reports it will invest more than $100 million in the facility to manufacture commercial airframes, classified military programs and commercial engine structures.
"We are so proud of our rich manufacturing heritage in this city," Wood said.
ATK plans to revamp a 615,000-square-foot building near the Freeport Center and ramp up production next summer, initially hiring more than 100 people.
The remaining new jobs are planned to be added over the next 20 years, but company officials said the hiring will accelerate as ATK fills customer orders.
DeYoung said ATK has already secured $1 billion in new business that can be fed to the facility, the largest being a contract for composite work on a new Airbus plane.
The Airbus A350 is a long-range, midsize, wide-body family of airliners currently under development by Airbus, a European aircraft manufacturer.
State officials said the shift for ATK to commercial airline work in Utah will fit long-term plans for the aerospace cluster of manufacturers in the region.
"Being able to bring this here really complements the talent we already developed out of the space program," DeYoung said.
The new facility will allow research, engineering and manufacturing to be housed in one location.
The announcement comes as welcome relief to officials during a struggling year for parts of the company in Utah.
"It's a growth industry," said Jeff Edwards, the Economic Development Corporation of Utah president.
Since April 2009, more than 1,500 people have left other ATK operations in Utah, voluntarily or otherwise, after defense and aerospace cutbacks in the shuttle and other missile programs.
The new Clearfield facility will be subsidized with city, county and state help, including a post- performance refundable tax credit of nearly $19 million over the two- decade period.
The Composites Center will eventually double the number of people working at the ATK Aerospace Structures facilities in Davis County.
The current composite facility in the Freeport Center employs 775 people and recently unveiled new machinery designed to help build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
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