Ciba Specialty Chemicals to Remain and Grow in Suffolk, Va.

Mar. 5--NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Suffolk has added to its tax base and retained one of its biggest employers as Ciba Specialty Chemicals announced plans to expand its sites in the city. Ciba, which has 430 employees in Suffolk, is constructing a $3.5 million, 26,000-square-foot building for the Ciba water- and paper-treatment division's North American headquarters. The site will be used for research and development laboratories, as well as for sales and administration. Suffolk is the division's headquarters, but Switzerland-based Ciba also had research and administrative employees from the water- and paper-treatment division in North Carolina and New York. Eight workers from those sites will move to Suffolk. There are no new jobs planned as a result of the new building. "This is a true consolidation of the headquarters functions," said Win Winslow, spokesman for Ciba. Suffolk will give Ciba a $150,000 cash incentive for adding the building in the city, and the state will provide some work-force training for the company. Ciba officials said they were looking at 22 locations for the division headquarters and its 100 jobs, which is why the city is paying to retain the business. The Suffolk site, which makes chemicals for treating water and making paper, also has the main manufacturing facility for the division. Winslow said that it made sense to keep the headquarters here and that the quality of life in Hampton Roads and relationship with the city was good. Some of the Ciba sales offices in Suffolk are in trailers, and the remainder of the research and administrative employees are in an older building right now. It will be beneficial to move everyone into a modern site, said Winslow. "It enables us to provide the type of image we want to show our customers," he said. Ciba has an annual payroll of about $18 million, including benefits. It became part of Suffolk's business community in 1998, when it bought Allied Colloids.