Hershey Foods still employs 6,100 people in central Pennsylvania, but the region recently was passed over for a $48-million plant that went to Stuarts Draft, Va., instead. Locals pointed to Virginia's non-unionized work force, as well as its 6-percent corporate net income tax rate, compared to Pennsylvania's 9.9-percent rate.
      However, Pennsylvania has turned the tables at least a bit with a major investment from a Virginia-based corporation. Roanoke-based Advance Auto Parts is creating 500 new jobs with a distribution operation projected to open in spring 2005 in the Lehigh Valley community of Weisenberg Township. To better serve its growing Northeast store portfolio, the retailer is planning to add 150,000 sq. ft. (13,935 sq. m.) to an existing 500,000-sq.-ft. (46,450-sq.-m.) facility in Arcadia West Industrial Park. That same park is seeing a 26,000-sq.-ft. (2,415-sq.-m.), 21-job expansion from thermoplastic building product firm Suntuf. That deal was helped along by a $516,825 loan from the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority, which the company used to make a land purchase.

Lehigh Valley Industrial Park's proposed development plan for the long-dormant Bethlehem Steel property is proceeding full steam ahead after the May 2004 acquisition of the property from International Steel Group. The project is described on page 680.

      "The PIDA loan program is an excellent incentive package and a major reason why Palram Industries chose the Lehigh Valley for the U.S. headquarters of Suntuf 2000, Suntuf Inc. and P.R.E. USA, Inc.," said Arnon Eshed, president of P.R.E. USA, Inc., a division of Suntuf's parent company, Israel-based Palram Industries, Ltd. "The low interest loan, combined with the Lehigh Valley's dedicated work force and direct access to an interconnected highway system, made it an easy choice to stay and expand rather than relocate."
      Those are just two of many announcements for Lehigh Valley early in 2004. But the big fish was electronics product distributor Olympus America's decision to relocate its headquarters and up to 800 jobs from Long Island, N.Y., to a 41-acre (17-hectare) site in Upper Saucon Township's 1,600-acre (648-hectare) Stabler Corporate Center by August 2006. Driven by an upcoming lease expiration, the company's search looked at 16 markets in the Midwest and East over the past two years.
      When it came down to incentive packages in the region, F. Mark Gumz, Olympus America's CEO, said the Pennsylvania offer -- sweetened by state promises to improve surrounding highway access -- represented "tens of millions of dollars of savings during the incentive period and substantial annual savings representing millions of dollars, compared to current operating costs, after the tax abatement ends December 31, 2013." That abatement is the result of a vote by local officials to call the site a KOZ. The company is making payments in lieu of taxes to Upper Saucon and the local school district. The 300,000-sq.-ft. (27,870-sq.-m.) complex will include a 130-worker DC.