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

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 million, 176,000-square-foo expansion of its manufacturingfacility here, Keith Bone, general managerr of the local told members of . AED held its quarterly meetiny Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, presidentf and CEO of Solar Array Ventures, outliner his company’s plan to build a massive solar manufacturing plantf onthe city’s Westside. General expansion should be completedby 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 spendintg to New Mexico.
The Albuquerque City Council approveda $100 millioj industrial revenue bond deal for the company in BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landerd the design/build contract to build the expansion, but Bone said 80 percent of the firm’s spending and employeesa willbe local. The precasy panels being used in the construction are manufacturecdin Belen. General Millxs has been in Albuquerquesince 1991. Its current facility is located near Paseo del Norte and Edithg and has 190 with an annual payrollof $12 million, said Bone. The 275,000-square-fooy plant produces about 135 million pounds annuallyy of 35different cereals.
The facility also has a lab on-sitr where the instructions for baking Genera Mills products at high altitudesare created. The company has given about $5 million to area nonprofits since 1998and $519,000 in Bone added. Don Power, chairmajn of AED, said the cereal company’s donationa illustrate one of the things the organization looks for inrecruitingy companies: community involvement. Hudgins said Solar Arrau plans to break ground by the third quartetr of this year ona 225,000-square-foot thin-film photovoltaixc manufacturing plant in the Cordero Mesa business park, west of the mattress The company plans to add three more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facilit y employing about 225.
Its annual payrol l in the first phase wouldbe $14 About five percent of the jobs would pay 45 percent would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs woulfd pay $45,000. The capital investment for the first phas e willbe $170 million and the company would spend $40 milliojn annually for raw The first phase is expected to have a capacityt of 75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a space that will serv e as a community and educational center. Solae Array is seeking $175 million in industrialk revenue bonds fromBernalillo County. The compant is working to raise $210 millionn in debt and equity, Hudgins said.
Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two other statex forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offed the largest incentives. But the coordination amonhg local and state government officials and other parties made New Mexic far more efficient in establishing a plannintg framework that the company could then use to plan a budgef forthe plant, he said “That was a major issue for us,” Hudgins said. He also praised the labord force here and theeducational institutions. The facilitt is being designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, which has Texaa offices in Austin, Dallas and as well as Denver, Washington, D.C. and London, U.K.
Hoffmam Construction, based in Portland, is building the facility.