Consumer products manufacturing giant Procter & Gamble has won approval from the City of Coolidge’s planning and zoning commission for the project’s major site plan, one of the first milestones to be reached since it was initially announced more than two years ago.
The commission unanimously approved the company’s initial plans for a 360,000-square-foot manufacturing facility set to create 500 jobs and produce “low-water” laundry care products like Tide PODS, Bounce dryer sheets and Downy Unstopables scent beads.
David Nieves, senior director for manufacturing for the company, said at a November meeting the company was working toward obtaining a temporary use permit to begin construction of a high-voltage electric substation, with “every facility will be 100% run on equivalent power for renewable energy.”
He said P&G will be producing an equivalent amount of power from a wind farm in Texas to offset the electricity supplied by APS to run the factory. The factory will be water-efficient, with some technology to be unveiled at a later date expected to cut the initial usage by 50%.
The Ohio-based conglomerate first announced its intent to build the factory on 427 acres within Coolidge’s Inland Port Arizona in November 2022, saying at that time the facility would be operational in 2025. When asked by one of the commissioners whether construction would begin sometime in 2026, Nieves said “I don’t have a date at this time.”
P&G has operations in some 70 nations around the globe, and its best-known brands include Tide, Pampers, Dawn, Febreze, Gillette and Olay.
