Big expansion set for N. Las Vegas tissue plant

Monday, Sept. 23, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

U.S. wood products giant Potlatch Corp. of Spokane, Wash., said today it will spend $66 million to build a new tissue machine and related equipment at the company's complex in North Las Vegas.

The project is one of the largest industrial, non-gaming investments in the Las Vegas area in recent years.

Potlatch Chairman L. Pendleton Siegel said in a statement that the company's board has approved work on the 8-foot-wide tissue machine, which should begin producing about 30,000 tons of toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towels and napkins a year in late 2003 or early 2004.

The tissue, initially produced as 2-ton paper rolls at Potlatch's plants in Lewiston, Idaho, is shipped to Southern Nevada, then converted and packaged in North Las Vegas primarily for private label grocery store and drugstore customers in Southern California and the Southwest.

Potlatch's North Las Vegas plant, which began production in 1993, employs about 100 people now and expects to add about 70 jobs because of the expansion. The Haskell Corp. of Jacksonville, Fla., is constructing a nearly 100,000-square-foot addition to the North Las Vegas plant to house the new tissue line. The plant now measures 400,000 square feet on 20 acres.

Toschi, an Italian company, is making the specialized paper converting equipment for the North Las Vegas expansion.

Potlatch said the new equipment will not only expand the size of Potlatch's North Las Vegas plant, but will expand its capabilities.

Instead of only converting paper into tissue, the new machinery will allow Potlatch to turn wood fiber -- shipped directly to North Las Vegas from Canadian lumber mills -- into high-quality paper towels.

Potlatch officials said state and local financial incentives including tax breaks contributed to their decision to expand in North Las Vegas. Potlatch worked with the Nevada Development Authority, the city of North Las Vegas and other agencies on the expansion.

A spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Economic Development said the Potlatch project is the largest nongaming expansion the agency has assisted with in Southern Nevada since it was created in the 1980s.

Georgia Pacific's $24 million expansion of its gypsum manufacturing plant in 1999 was the previous high amount spent in an expansion involving NCED incentives.

The commission approved incentives for Potlatch in April, granting abatements in sales and use, business and personal property taxes totalling $4.5 million. The company also was granted sales and use tax deferrals allowing the company to delay payment on some taxes.

The company qualified for state economic incentives by adding jobs providing an average hourly wage of $22.45 an hour, as well as adding a job training program, the spokeswoman said.