news-record.com

SHELBY — A paper company will spend $260 million on a new plant here and hire 250 workers over the next five years.

The governor's office announced today that Clearwater Paper Corp. will use the new factory and distribution center to make private-label tissue products for retail grocery chains throughout the Southeast and along the East Coast.

The overall average wage for the 250 new jobs will be approximately $38,000. The average Cleveland County wage is $31,200.

The company will get $500,000 from the One North Carolina Fund.

It also is eligible for a Job Development Investment Grant, which is equal to 65 percent of the state personal income withholding taxes derived from the creation of new jobs for each of the 12 years in which the company meets annual performance targets. The grant is worth as much as $3.48 million over the life of the grant.

Clearwater makes pulp and paperboard, private-label tissue and wood products. Its consumer products division supplies more than half of the retail grocery store brand bathroom tissue, paper towels, facial tissue and napkins in the United States.

The company has private-label tissue manufacturing facilities in the West and Midwest but not in the Southeast.