Intel Picks Washington Site for New Plant : Technology: Firm will spend $50 million to $100 million to build the first portion of the facility.

Intel Corp. said Friday that it plans to build a manufacturing and research complex in a tiny but historic former company town near Tacoma, Wash.

Du Pont, Wash., population 600 and once the property of the chemical company of the same name, won the facility in a contest with much larger rivals--Salt Lake City and Ft. Worth.

Intel, a Silicon Valley pioneer based in Santa Clara, said it took into account a variety of factors in making its choice, including the quality of the available work force, the general business climate, the speed of winning permits and the location’s proximity to an existing Intel facility in Hillsboro, Ore., about 150 miles to the south.

Cities and counties nationwide in recent years have competed ferociously for big high-tech projects, especially semiconductor factories, which cost upward of $1 billion and supply hundreds of high-paying jobs. The Du Pont facility will not make computer chips, but instead will do research and development and assemble computer systems that other manufacturers will then market under their own names. Intel expects to employ 6,000 workers there by 2000.

Assuming that Intel’s land purchase goes through and that agencies come across with the required permits, Intel expects to break ground on the initial phase of the project by Oct. 31, with the first portion costing $50 million to $100 million. Light manufacturing is scheduled to begin by June, with a 1,200-person payroll anticipated by year-end.

Intel’s site will consist of a 192-acre parcel that is part of a 3,000-acre, mixed-use planned community that surrounds the village of Du Pont. The area, known as Northwest Landing, is owned by a real estate subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Co., the big Tacoma-based forest products and land management company.

Erling Mork, president of the Economic Development Board of Tacoma and Pierce County, emphasized that the Washington state constitution prohibits communities from offering tax incentives to lure employers. But he noted that a key draw for Intel was that Weyerhaeuser agreed to build an interchange on Interstate 5 to improve access to the site.

From 1833 to 1869, the site held Ft. Nisqually, one of three original Hudson’s Bay Co. forts. Du Pont bought the area in 1906 and opened a munitions plant, supplying small frame houses, many of them still standing, for workers. Du Pont shut that operation in 1970, and Weyerhaeuser bought the property in 1974.

This will be Intel’s first new U.S. site since 1985, when it announced a facility in Folsom, Calif., near Sacramento. As the demand for personal computers and other electronic products has boomed in recent years, Intel has grown apace.

The company has a number of other expansions under way worldwide, including a $500-million project at its main Santa Clara campus.