Northrop Grumman Opens an 845,000-Square-Foot Plant in Layton With Room for 1,500 Workers
Layton has a new industrial anchor. On Wednesday, September 9, company and government officials cut the ribbon on East Gate 3, a Northrop Grumman manufacturing campus in the East Gate Business Park next to Hill Air Force Base.
The numbers are the headline. The facility spans roughly 845,000 square feet across several buildings, and the company has said it will scale to a capacity of about 1,500 employees by 2032, filling engineering and manufacturing roles.
What gets built there
East Gate 3 supports production of the B-21 Raider, the Air Force’s next-generation stealth bomber. Company representatives described the Utah site as building “key components” without detailing which ones, which is unsurprising for a classified program. It is one of several Northrop Grumman sites around the country contributing to the aircraft.
Why it matters in Davis County
Hill Air Force Base has been the economic backbone of north Davis County for generations, and the ripple effects of a project this size reach well past the fence line. Fifteen hundred engineering and manufacturing jobs phased in over several years means sustained demand for housing, schools, restaurants and services across Layton, Clearfield, Kaysville, Syracuse and the surrounding cities.
It also means traffic. The East Gate Business Park sits along a corridor that already carries heavy base-related commuting, and a workforce ramping toward four figures will be felt on the roads and at the FrontRunner stations serving the area long before 2032.
Layton Mayor Joy Petro spoke at the ceremony, along with Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and Chris Adams, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s B-21 program.
City-level information on development in the area is posted by Layton City, and base information is available from Hill Air Force Base. Details about the facility come from Northrop Grumman, with the ribbon-cutting first reported by the Standard-Examiner.
More local coverage is on our Layton guide and the Layton news stream.
