Solar Array, Gen. Mills detail expansions - Houston Business Journal:

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacility here, Keithn Bone, general manager of the local facility, told memberd of . AED held its quarterlh meeting Thursdayat . Joe president and CEO of SolarArrayu Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to build a massive solar manufacturinhg plant on the city’zs Westside. General Mills’ expansiojn should be completedby November, Bone The cereal manufacturer will hire 60 additional employees, bringing additiona payroll to the area of $3.5 million. The expansioj also brings $30 million in spending to New Mexico.
The Albuquerquw City Council approveda $100 million industriap revenue bond deal for the company in February. BE&oK Corp. from North Carolina landed the design/build contract to buildx the expansion, but Bone said 80 percen of the firm’s spending and employees will be local. The precast panels being used in the construction are manufacturedin Belen. General Mills has been in Albuquerquesince 1991. Its currentf facility is located near Paseo del Nortes and Edith and has190 employees, with an annual payroll of $12 million, said Bone. The 275,000-square-foot plant produces abouyt 135 million pounds annually of 35different cereals.
The facilitt also has a lab on-site where the instructions for bakingb General Mills products at high altitudes are The company has givenabout $5 million to area nonprofitzs since 1998 and $519,000 in scholarships, Bone Don Power, chairman of AED, said the cerea l company’s donations illustrate one of the thing the organization looks for in recruiting companies: communitty involvement. Hudgins said Solar Array plana to break ground by the third quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-foo t thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Cordero Mesa business park, west of the mattresd factory.
The company plans to add three more buildingsx of that size as it he said, with each facility employinhg about 225. Its annual payroll in the first phase wouldbe $14 million. About five percent of the jobs woulrdpay $100,000, 45 perceng would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs woulc pay $45,000. The capital investment for the first phase willbe $170 million and the companyg would spend $40 million annuallh for raw materials. The first phase is expected to have a capacity of75 megawatts, but that wouldx grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a space that will servwe as a community and educational center.
Solar Array is seeking $175 million in industrial revenude bonds fromBernalillo County. The companyy is working to raise $210 million in debt and equity, Hudgind said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two othefr states forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offet the largest incentives. But the coordination amon g local and state government officials and other parties made New Mexici far more efficient in establishing a plannintg framework that the company couldf then use to plan a budgett forthe plant, he said “That was a majof issue for us,” Hudgins said.
He also praisedr the labor force here and the educational The facility is being designed byPageSoutherlandPagr LLP, which has Texas offices in Austin, Dallas and as well as Denver, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffman Construction, based in Ore., is building the facility.