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Boston, Mass.-based online retailer CSN Stores announced Thursday it will add a customer-service facility in Ogden that within 10 years could employ as many as 700 people.
The company announced the expansion immediately after Utah offered an incentive worth as much as $548,500 to entice the company to expand there.
The incentive, approved by the Governor's Office of Economic Development board, is payable over 10 years in the form of a tax credit. The state also has agreed to help train Utahns to work at the new facility, and Ogden is putting together an incentive package of its own to help the company defray the cost.
CSN sells consumer goods via csnstores.com. Company officials said they have been considering sites in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Boise, Idaho, and Albuquerque, N.M., for a new customer-service and distribution facility designed to serve the western United States.
The company estimates it will invest $1.5 million.
The incentive offered by Utah on Thursday isn't payable up front. The company will get the money only if it completes its expansion and hires a specified number of people. In its application for state money, the company said it would hire 266 people during the next two years, and as many as 700 in the next 10 years.
The company also must meet certain payroll requirements. In its incentive application, the company said of the 266 new full-time positions it plans to create, 163 of the new workers will earn an average of nearly $42,000 annually, including benefits. It is those salary levels that helped the company qualify for state incentive money; the other 103 workers the company plans to hire will earn smaller amounts.
"We're really excited to establish our roots in the Utah area, and based on our meetings with all of the Utah officials over the past few months, we've been impressed with the state and the people we've come across. [We] think it's a good fit with CSN," said Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Malone.
Ogden Mayor Matthew R. Godfrey said the expansion will help an area that has been hurt by layoffs, such as those at Alliant Techsystems Inc., the maker of solid-fuel rocket motors used by the nation's space program and military. Hundreds of Alliant's northern Utah workers lost their jobs late last year at the company's facility in Promontory.
Godfrey said Ogden tried hard to secure CSN's expansion in the state.
"We think this is a very impressive company," he said.
Need a job?
Anyone interested in a customer service or warehouse job with CSN Stores in Ogden can inquire and/or send a resume to recruiting@csnstores.com.