Procter & Gamble broke ground Friday on a $500 million West Virginia manufacturing hub, a project expected to create hundreds of jobs as one of the largest economic development projects in the state's history. The world's largest FMCG company said the plant is expected to employ 700 people full-time once it opens, affording relatively swift access to the bulk of its East Coast customers from the site at Tabler Station in the state's Eastern Panhandle. The facility will stretch more than 1 million square feet across 458 acres and produce multiple brands, though P&G hasn't announced which products yet.
Some 1,000 temporary construction positions are to become available as construction begins next month, leading up to the 2017 opening of the plant—only the second to be built by Procter & Gamble in the US since 1971. The company selected the West Virginia site after considering 70 locations. P&G said the West Virginia site lets it reach nearly 80% of retail customers and consumers in the eastern half of the country within a one-day transit. Washington, D.C. is 80 miles away, Baltimore 100 miles and New York City, 265 miles away.
"We had essentially created a unicorn in this marketplace, and we knew it," said Stephen Christian, Berkeley County Economic Development Authority executive director. "We knew we were the biggest (site) that was available in the mid-Atlantic section of the I-81 corridor."
About two years before Procter & Gamble was drawn to the site in Berkeley County, Christian explained that county officials borrowed $2 million and more than doubled the size of an existing industrial park before setting out to hunt for Fortune 500 companies.
The Berkeley County officials said having that "mega-industrial" park in place helped Berkeley County land the plant. West Virginia is the least populated state in a competitive region for landing new businesses. Parts of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania are just a few dozen miles' driving distance or less from the site.