Intel to Open Utah &nResearch Center

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 6/1/1999

Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) will buy 150 acres to build a major R&D campus in Riverton, Utah. Although the company expects to break ground this summer, it has been unusually reserved about its plans for the new R&D campus. According to a company spokesman, the first occupants will be 350 employees Intel already has in Taylorsville, a Salt Lake City suburb, and American Fork in Utah County. Eventually, Intel expects the campus to be composed of seven buildings, with a staff of 6,000 to 8,000.

The land is currently a welfare farm belonging to the Mormon Church and is along a major highway that leads to the Salt Lake International Airport, a major consideration for Intel's decision to put its research facility in that area of Utah. Proximity to two universities with engineering programs -- the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and Brigham Young University in Provo -- was another factor for the selection.

The company has no firm construction time line or schedule, nor a firm construction plan for the first building. Utah's Business and Economic Development Board in September gave the company a $5M industrial assistance loan, which will become a grant provided Intel creates 6,000 to 8,000 jobs with salaries averaging $50,000 a year.

Other incentives were the establishment of an Economic Development Area to freeze the taxable value of the 150 acres that will become home to Intel's campus and a budget that gives Intel more than $10M in tax incentives over a 12-year period to offset the cost of roads, utilities and other improvements to the site.