Solar Array, Gen. Mills detail expansions - Business First of Buffalo:

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacility here, Keith Bone, general manage r of the local facility, told members of . AED held its quarterlyh meeting Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, presidentf and CEO of Solar Array Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to builed a massive solar manufacturing plant onthe city’ds Westside. General Mills’ expansion should be completesdby November, Bone said. The cereal manufacturer will hire 60additiona employees, bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.
5 The expansion also brings $30 millionm in spending to New The Albuquerque City Council approvedf a $100 million industrial revenu bond deal for the companty in February. BE&K Corp. from North Carolinw landed the design/build contract to build the but Bone said 80 percenr ofthe firm’s spending and employees will be The precast panels being used in the constructionm are manufactured in Belen. General Mills has been in Albuquerquersince 1991. Its current facility is locate d near Paseo del Norte and Edith and has190 employees, with an annua payroll of $12 million, said Bone. The 275,000-square-foot planyt produces about 135 million poundz annually of 35different cereals.
The facility also has a lab on-sitee where the instructions for baking General Milles products at high altitudesare created. The companyt has given about $5 million to area nonprofita since 1998and $519,000 in scholarships, Bone added. Don chairman of AED, said the cereak company’s donations illustrate one of the thingz the organization looks for inrecruitingf companies: community involvement. Hudgins said Solar Arrayy plans to break ground by the third quartere of this year ona 225,000-square-foof thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing planyt in the Cordero Mesa business park, west of the mattressd factory.
The company plans to add three more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facility employing about 225. Its annuak payroll in the firsgt phase wouldbe $14 million. Abour five percent of the jobs would pay 45 percent wouldpay $70,00o0 and half of the jobs would pay $45,000. The capital investmentr for the first phase willbe $170 millionb and the company would spend $40 million annually for raw The first phase is expected to have a capacity of 75 but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a spacw that will serve as a community and educationap center. Solar Array is seekinfg $175 million in industrial revenue bondds fromBernalillo County.
The companh is working to raise $210 million in debt and Hudgins said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two othet states forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offed the largest incentives. But the coordination among local and statw government officials and other partie s made New Mexico far more efficient in establishing a planning frameworlk that the company could then use to plan a budget for the hesaid “That was a major issue for Hudgins said. He also praises the labor force here and theeducational institutions. The facility is beinv designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, whichu has Texas offices in Dallas and Houston, as well as Denver, Washington, D.C. and U.K.
Hoffman Construction, based in Portland, is building the facility.