By Joel Phelps
The Arkadelphian

Those talking about Hostess coming to Clark County have not been full of crepe: media outlets have uncovered the secret ingredient of Project “Cupcake,” a name local economic development officials put in their recipe book as a prospective industry interested in adding jobs to Clark County.

Trade publication Baking Business named Hostess Brands, Inc., as the company that acquired the former Danfoss facility in the Clark County Industrial Park to turn the plant into a “bakery of the future.”

According to bakingbusiness.com’s website (careful with those clicks, as this paywall site is not as generous with the sprinkles as The Arkadelphian), the company’s chief growth officer announced at a March 1 investors’ presentation that Hostess will invest a sweet $120-140 million in the plant. (No need to feel too crummy if you can’t read the article, as The Arkadelphian will always be sugar-free!)

On a serious note, the Economic Development Corp. of Clark County has vowed $2 million in incentives to aid the company in investing in the community (that’s a little more than 100 Grand, for those wondering). The local share comes from a voter-passed 1/2-cent sales Tic-Tax collected for the very reason of attracting businesses to the county.

(The Arkadelphian has a confection: we got scooped faster than an ice cream cone on a summer day, but that’s for a piece on the Voices page later. To our most devoted flans: donut worry, as it will happen!) Hostess, according to the article, should be operating locally by late 2023 and should bring with it 170 jobs (let’s just hope the, um, turnover isn’t high).

A recent real estate transaction filed at the Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office unveiled that a limited liability company, New HB Acquisition, had purchased 23 acres of the industrial park for $11.5 million, but due to a non-disclosure agreement with the company, representatives with the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance have kept their lips sealed on any details, unable to confirm or deny Hostess as the project.

Maybe we’ll know more after this Sundae?