Solar Array, Gen. Mills detail expansions - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacility here, Keity Bone, general manager of the local facility, told memberss of . AED held its quarterly meetinb Thursdayat . Joe president and CEO of SolarArray Ventures, outlinedd his company’s plan to build a massive solar manufacturinfg plant on the city’s General Mills’ expansion should be completed by Bone said. The cereal manufacturer will hire 60 additional employees, bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.5 The expansion also brings $30 milliojn in spending to New Mexico.
The Albuquerque City Council approveda $100 million industrial revenude bond deal for the company in BE&K Corp. from North Carolina lander the design/build contract to builed the expansion, but Bone said 80 percent of the firm’d spending and employees will be local. The precast panelse being used in the constructioh are manufactured in General Mills has been in Albuquerquesince 1991. Its current facilitgy is located near Paseo del Norte and Edith and has 190 with an annual payrollof $12 million, said Bone. The 275,000-square-foo plant produces about 135 million pounds annually of 35differeng cereals.
The facility also has a lab on-sitr where the instructions for baking Generakl Mills products at high altitudeszare created. The company has given about $5 millio n to area nonprofits since 1998and $519,000 in Bone added. Don chairman of AED, said the cereal company’s donations illustrat one of the things the organizationm looks for inrecruiting companies: community Hudgins said Solar Array plans to break ground by the thirs quarter of this year on a 225,000-square-foort thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Cordero Mesa business park, west of the mattress factory.
The company plans to add threre more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facilityu employing about 225. Its annual payroll in the first phase wouldbe $14 million. About five percent of the jobs woul dpay $100,000, 45 percen t would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs woulde pay $45,000. The capitao investment for the first phase willbe $170 million and the compan would spend $40 millionm annually for raw materials. The first phasre is expected to have a capacitt of75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a space that will serve as a communitu and educational center.
Solar Array is seeking $175 million in industrial revenue bonds fromBernalillo County. The companyh is working to raise $210 million in debt and equity, Hudginsx said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two other statese forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offe r the largest incentives. But the coordination among localp and state government officials and other parties made New Mexic far more efficient in establishing a planning framework that the compan could then use to plan a budgetr forthe plant, he said “Thaft was a major issue for us,” Hudginsw said. He also praised the labodr force here and theeducational institutions.
The facility is beinh designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, whichg has Texas offices in Austin, Dallasw and Houston, as well as Washington, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffmanm Construction, based in Portland, Ore., is buildingf the facility.