Solar Array, Gen. Mills detail expansions - New Mexico Business Weekly:

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacilithy here, Keith Bone, general manageer of the local told members of . AED held its quarterly meetingb Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, president and CEO of Sola r Array Ventures, outlined his company’d plan to build a massive solar manufacturingy plant onthe city’s Westside. General Mills’ expansio n should be completed by Bone said. The cereal manufacturer will hire 60 additional bringing additional payroll to the areaof $3.
5 The expansion also brings $30 million in spending to New The Albuquerque City Council approved a $100 million industrial revenue bond deal for the companh in February. BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landed the design/build contract to builxd the expansion, but Bone said 80 percent of the firm’z spending and employees will be The precast panels being used in the construction are manufacturecdin Belen. General Mills has been in Albuquerque since 1991. Its current facility is located near Paseo del Norte and Edity and has190 employees, with an annualo payroll of $12 million, said Bone.
The 275,000-square-foott plant produces about 135 millionm pounds annually of 35 different The facility also has alab on-sited where the instructions for bakin General Mills products at high altitudes are The company has givem about $5 million to area nonprofits sincr 1998 and $519,000 in scholarships, Bone Don Power, chairman of AED, said the cereal company’a donations illustrate one of the things the organization looksw for in recruiting companies: communitt involvement.
Hudgins said Solar Arrau plans to break ground by the thirc quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-foot thin-film photovoltai c manufacturing plant in the Corderoo Mesa business park, west of the mattress The company plans to add three more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facilityh employing about 225. Its annual payroll in the firstf phase wouldbe $14 million. About five perceng of the jobs wouldpay $100,000, 45 percentt would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs would pay The capital investment for the firstg phase will be $170 million and the company wouldr spend $40 million annually for raw materials.
The firsf phase is expected to have a capacity of75 megawatts, but that woulds grow to 300 mw with the full buildout. The plantf also will have a spaces that will serve as a communityt andeducational center. Solar Array is seekingb $175 million in industrial revenue bonds fromBernalillop County. The company is workinfg to raise $210 million in debt and Hudgins said. Hudgins said New Mexicl beat out two other states for the despite the fact that it did not offerr thelargest incentives.
But the coordinatiom among local and state government officials and other partiesa made New Mexico far more efficient in establishing a planningt framework that the company could then use to plan a budgeg forthe plant, he said “Tha t was a major issue for us,” Hudgins said. He also praised the labofr force here and the educational The facility is being designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, which has Texasd offices in Austin, Dallas and as well as Denver, Washington, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffman based in Portland, Ore.
, is building the