Henderson company gets tax breaks for creating jobs, expanding plant

By Richard N. Velotta (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

The Southern Nevada company that produced the decorative rock surfaces at Aria in MGM Resorts International’s CityCenter project will receive nearly $59,000 in tax abatements for creating jobs and investing capital in a plant expansion.

Henderson-based Las Vegas Rock Inc., which operates a plant in Jean that produces meta-quartzite with rock-cutting equipment available only here and in Europe, will receive sales and personal property tax abatements totaling $58,619 over 10 years.

The Nevada Commission on Economic Development voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a one-year sales tax abatement of 2 percent, which will save the company $25,860, and a 10-year property tax abatement averaging under $2,000 a year totaling $17,154.

Las Vegas Rock also will have its sales tax deferred over two years, and the company will receive $11,000 in training grants for 11 new employees who will be hired.

The commission granted the incentives under a program for business relocations to Nevada and expansions within the state.

To qualify, a company must meet two of three criteria. Las Vegas Rock qualified by creating 11 new jobs, 83 percent above the statutory requirement of six, and a capital investment of $587,867, 122 percent above the investment statutory requirement.

The company didn’t meet an average wage requirement. It will pay new workers $18.18 an hour compared with the state average of $19.82 for the category.

The commission estimated the company’s expansion would result in an economic impact of $31.7 million over 10 years and generate $397,198 in net new tax revenue over 10 years.

Steve Wickman, owner of Las Vegas Rock, said the company has grown over the years.

“Twenty years ago, we were sending blocks of stone overseas to be processed to meet the customer demand,” Wickman said. “Then we started sending things to a plant in Wisconsin and then to a plant in Arizona before we finally built our facility in Jean (in 2004).”

The company mines the rock at the Rainbow Quarry, a 920-acre site near Goodsprings. It produces meta-quartzite stone tile and thin veneer for indoor and outdoor flooring and wall facings. The company has 25 full-time employees.

The project at CityCenter has been Las Vegas Rock’s top achievement, and the company was spotlighted in a 12-page illustrated feature article in the July 2010 edition of Stone World magazine.

The company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and is dedicated to producing LEED-certified projects.

Wickman said the company has projects across the West as well as in Kuwait and the Netherlands. The $1 million expansion and the rating of the new equipment being purchased will enable the company to expand to three shifts a day. The Jean site also is large enough for the company to build additional plants for further expansion.

In other business, the commission clarified a proposed new requirement for economic incentives.

Commissioners voted to require employers to provide at least 25 percent of the cost of employee health-care premiums and require that health-care plans be made available to employee families as a future condition of getting tax abatements and deferrals as economic incentives.

The 25 percent figure was recommended by the Nevada Development Authority, the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada and the Northern Nevada Development Authority.

Mike Skaggs, executive director of the Commission on Economic Development, said most companies that seek economic incentives exceed the 25 percent minimum threshold.