A First Look at the Cost of Chobani’s Idaho Plant

Chobani’s parent company, Agro Farma, has released some details of its plans to build a new yogurt manufacturing facility in Twin Falls.  The company plans to break ground on the facility in December. It will be located on 200 acres south of U.S. Highway 30.

The city of Twin Falls has agreed to more than $25 million in infrastructure improvements using urban renewal dollars, tax increment financing and Idaho Community Development Block Grants, according to Agro Farma.  The Times-News has this explanation of the funding sources:

“Urban renewal districts get their money primarily by tax-increment financing, which allows the agencies to collect any increase in assessed property tax value within their boundaries after their formation and use them as incentives for developers. In this case, the site is in the city’s urban renewal district, and is turned the site area into a revenue allocation area that will generate the urban renewal dollars.  The city’s also putting $6.75 million of tax dollars into wastewater pretreatment and sewer line improvements that are needed for wet industry projects to come to Twin Falls.  The deal with the company also puts fee waivers in place for construction and wastewater system capacity.”

Here are the data sheet and the project fact-sheet from Agro Farma and the city of Twin Falls.