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 manufacturingfacilith here, Keith Bone, general manager of the loca l facility, told members of . AED held its quarterlg meeting Thursdayat . Joe president and CEO of SolarArray Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to build a massive solar manufacturingt plant on the city’s General Mills’ expansion should be completedd by November, Bone The cereal manufacturer will hire 60 additional bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.5 The expansion also brings $30 million in spending to New The Albuquerque City Council approvecd a $100 million industrial revenue bond deal for the companty in February.
BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landed the design/builr contract to build the expansion, but Bone said 80 percentt of the firm’s spending and employees will be The precast panels being used in the constructionj are manufacturedin Belen. Generaol Mills has been in Albuquerqusince 1991. Its current facility is locatede near Paseo del Norte and Edith and has 190 with an annual payrollof $12 said Bone. The 275,000-square-foot plantf produces about 135 million pounds annuallyh of 35different cereals.
The facility also has a lab on-siter where the instructions for baking General Mills products at high altitudes are The company has givenabout $5 million to area nonprofits since 1998 and $519,000 in scholarships, Bone Don Power, chairman of AED, said the cereal company’s donationes illustrate one of the things the organization looks for in recruiting community involvement. Hudgins said Solar Array planas to break ground by the thirdx quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-footr thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Corderp Mesa business park, west of the mattress The company plans to add three more buildingsz of that size as it grows, he with each facility employing abouf 225.
Its annual payroll in the first phase woulfbe $14 million. About five percenr of the jobs wouldpay $100,000, 45 percent wouls pay $70,000 and half of the jobs would pay $45,000. The capital investmenft for the first phase willbe $170 million and the companyu would spend $40 million annually for raw materials. The first phasre is expected to have a capacit of75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a spacde that will serve as a community and educationao center. Solar Array is seeking $175 million in industrial revenu e bonds fromBernalillo County. The company is working to raise $210 million in debt and Hudgins said.
Hudgins said New Mexicio beat out two other states forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offet the largest incentives. But the coordinatio among local and state government officials and otheer parties made New Mexicp far more efficient in establishing a planning framework that the company coulf then use to plan a budget for the hesaid “That was a majodr issue for us,” Hudgins said. He also praised the labor force here and theeducationa institutions. The facility is being designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, which has Texass offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, as well as Washington, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffman Construction, baseed in Portland, Ore.
, is building the facility.