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Provo may not become home to Little Giant Ladder's manufacturing plant, but the city's loss is now apparently Springville's gain.
Wing Enterprises Inc., which became a household name through its late-night Little Giant Ladder infomercials, isn't going ahead with plans announced in August to move its $200 million ladder and accessories-making plant in Springville to Mountain Vista Business Center in Provo. But the company is relocating to a larger plant in Springville, Hal Wing, owner of Wing Enterprises, told the Daily Herald on Wednesday.
"We're not moving to Provo because we don't have time to wait to do what we want to do in Provo," Wing said, citing an unprecedented spurt of orders the company received in recent weeks. The new orders would require Wing to double its current capacity of 3,000 ladders a day to 6,000 ladders by mid-February.
"The orders were flowing like crazy in the last weeks of 2005," he said, citing his infomercial's success. "Home Depot is taking Little Giant Ladder to more than 2,000 stores nationwide in 2006. Costco is knocking at our door and we have contracts with retailers including Sears, Ace Hardware, Bed Bath and Beyond and Linens n' Things.
"A year ago, we were making 900 ladders a day. As of last week, we were making 2,800 ladders at day at the Springville plant. By February, we have to ramp up production to between 6,500 and 7,000 ladders a day to fulfill our new orders. I can't build a new plant in Provo in less than a year and ramp up to production capacity as well. We needed a standing structure that was ready for immediate occupancy."
Wing plans to move his 500-worker operation from a 96,000-square-foot building to a 250,000-square-foot building in Springville over the next six to seven weeks.
"We're looking to lease the new facility with an option to buy," he said. "The new building is designed for something totally different from ladder making. But we can make the floor plan work. It will be at least $7 million cheaper to move to the new plant in Springville than build a new plant from scratch in Provo. And it will be cheaper than losing the flood of new orders we received."
The company expects to generate between $450 million and $600 million in Little Giant Ladder sales this year, which is more than double its sales of $200 million in 2005. To ramp up its production capacity, Wing recently added $2 million worth of new equipment and plans to add more workers over the next few months.
For now, Wing plans to stay in Springville. "But depending on how business-friendly the new Springville administration is, we could also move to Salt Lake Valley. I've also got 54 acres of land in Palmyra. I'm not fussy about where I go as long as the city's administration is business friendly," he said.
Provo officials say they don't see the loss of Little Giant Ladder as a setback for Mountain Vista, the former Ironton Business Park in southwest Provo.
"We were excited about Little Giant Ladder becoming a major anchor at Mountain Vista, which would have jump-started our 20-acre business park. It would have been a great showpiece, similar to Novell's role at East Bay Business Center in the '80s," said Leland Gamette, economic development director for Provo. "But we also recognize the tremendous fast growth the company experienced which made it such that they can't make that move."
"We've been following their growth and know they were working feverishly to get the new plant done. But to build a facility from ground up would take at least 12 to 18 months, and that timeline didn't work for Little Giant Ladder," Gamette said.
Mountain Vista has received considerable interest from businesses and the city is now in talks with three other manufacturing tenants.
Gamette also doesn't rule out the possibility that Wing still may consider expanding to Provo. "Wing has told us that he would still want to entertain the possibility of growing in Provo after he's taken care of the growth spurt. But as long as those jobs are kept in Utah County, that's really the No. 1 thing we wanted, especially since the economic impact of job creation is more regional in nature."
Besides, Mountain Vista already has Novatek Corp., an oil and gas drill pipe technology developer, as its existing anchor tenant. The company recently added a new building at the business park, he said.
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