INOLA, Oklahoma (From news reports) -- A company is planning to break ground in mid-March on a facility that will initially employ about 300 people, said Scott Roy, president of the Inola Chamber of Commerce.

Officials have declined to disclose the name of the company, but Public Service Company of Oklahoma last month sold 240 acres of the site it proposed decades ago for the Black Fox nuclear power plant to Sofidel America Corp., an Italy-based company that specializes in tissue paper production, land records show.

A total of $360 million will be invested in a "major consumer goods manufacturing facility," according to minutes from a December meeting of the Rogers County Board of Commissioners.

The development will benefit the skilled industrial workers in Inola, many of whom must drive to such places as the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, Claremore, Catoosa and the MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor to find employment, Roy said.

"To have this in our backyard is really exciting for some of those people," Roy said.

About 500 workers could be needed for the facility's construction, which is expected to take 18 months, he said.

"With the construction workers coming in, we're going to see the biggest impact on our local gas stations and restaurants short-term," Roy said. "Long-term, a lot of those construction workers won't be looking to live in purchased housing. But they are going to be looking for RVs, rentals," options he said would bleed into Catoosa and Claremore.

The new company's property is in the Inola city limits, he said. To prepare for the company's arrival, officials created a tax incentive district that will lock in the company's property taxes at the existing rate for five years.

"The school is probably going to be the biggest benefactor out of all of this because of the taxes on the property and the equipment," Roy said of the post-abatement windfall.

Sofidel Group was founded in 1966 and is among the world leaders in the tissue paper production market for items such as toilet paper, napkins, paper towels, handkerchiefs and tissues.

The Black Fox project was an early 1973 plan to build two nuclear reactors at a cost of $450 million. The construction sparked years of litigation and protests led by activist Carrie Dickerson.

By 1980, construction estimates had ballooned to $2.4 billion, prompting PSO to ask the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for a rate hike to finance the project. After the commission found that Black Fox no longer was financially viable, the project was scrapped in February 1982.

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