ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON THE ROANOKE TIMES
The Canadian plant will "put bread on our table in several ways," said Gov. George Allen.
Plans for a large commercial bakery with 180 employees were announced in Roanoke Monday by a Canadian food company, which along with local and state government agencies is putting up plenty of dough for the project.
Maple Leaf Bakery Inc. said Monday it would build in the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology, an industrial park on U.S. 460.
The Franklin Park, Ill., company, owned by Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods Inc., will start construction in May and plans to bake its first loaf of bread by the end of the year.
The company will take advantage of at least $1.2 million in incentives, including some carrots designed to draw businesses to low- and moderate-income areas. But the company will spend $22 million for land, the building and equipment.
A table was spread with a dozen loaves of the company's nut and whole-grain breads when Gov. George Allen announced the news under a tent across from Roanoke City Hall. Maple Leaf sells speciality fresh and frozen bread to supermarkets and food-service brokers supplying restaurants.
Maple Leaf's products may be familiar to Roanoke Valley consumers - Food Lion supermarkets carry its Cambridge Rye Bread and Kroger stores stock Dempster's Fruit Bread, which comes in flavors such as blueberry, cranberry-orange and lemon-poppy seed. The Roanoke bakery is expected to supply a greater selection of Maple Leaf breads to area stores.
The plant will "put bread on our table in several ways," Allen said.
Maple Leaf needed to put a bakery in the Southeastern United States to meet its sales goals and looked at 50 sites. Roanoke was chosen in part because the company will receive money toward the cost of its new plant and 10 years of tax breaks.
The company brings in products from bakeries in California, Illinois and New Jersey for its regional customers.
Company officials said they would pay the going rate for bakery work, which was $12.63 hourly in the Roanoke area last summer, according to data from the Virginia Employment Commission. That is an average for hourly and management jobs. Maple Leaf did not release its actual pay rate, saying it had not been set.
Early on, it looked as if Maple Leaf might go elsewhere; a site visit was nearly canceled by a January snowstorm. But in the end, Roanoke sold the company 23 acres in the industrial park for $345,000 and agreed to pay $556,000 to help prepare the lot for construction.
The city will pay an additional $500,000 to extend a road and utility lines to the property and build a storm-runoff catch basin. The city has other land for sale in the park whose buyers will benefit from the planned road and utility work, officials said.
All told, Roanoke taxpayers will advance about $1.1 million toward the project. Maple Leaf is expected to return at least that amount in city property taxes within three years of the factory's startup, said Phil Sparks, Roanoke's chief of economic development.
State officials also have promised at least $100,000 in incentives and likely much more, most of which will be available because Maple Leaf bought land in a state enterprise zone. Enterprise zones provide tax breaks and other taxpayer-funded incentives to companies that establish or expand businesses in low- and moderate-income areas.
The Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology and adjacent Northeast Roanoke neighborhoods make up the enterprise zone in which Maple Leaf bought land. In return, the company will receive up to $500 per year for three years for every job filled. The grant would be $1,000 per year for every person hired who lives in the enterprise zone. No jobs have been reserved, however, for zone residents; they will have to apply along with everyone else interested.
The company will receive 80 percent off one year's corporate income tax owed in Virginia and a 60 percent cut for nine years after that for doing business in an enterprise zone. Local and state officials said they do not know how much the company could collect through these programs.
On top of these amounts, Allen on Monday pledged $110,000 to the project.
But the money wasn't the company's only reason to decide to build in Roanoke, said executive J. Andrew Bolt, who cited support and assistance received from Roanoke city government, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership.
"The spirit and enthusiasm this community has displayed serves as a perfect example of what can be accomplished with a team effort, and we are very excited about joining that team," said Bolt, chief financial officer and vice president of Maple Leaf Foods USA.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY THE ROANOKE TIMES. Roanoke Mayor David Bowersby CNB(left) and Gov. George Allen sample the product as they talk with J.
Andrew Bolt of Maple Leaf Foods. color. Graphic: Map by RT. KEYWORDS: JOBCHEK