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

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 million, 176,000-square-foogt expansion of its manufacturingfacilitt here, Keith Bone, general manager of the locapl facility, told members of . AED held its quarterly meetinhg Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, president and CEO of Sola Array Ventures, outlined his company’sa plan to build a massive solar manufacturing plan t onthe city’s Westside. General expansion should be completed by Bone said. The cereal manufacturer will hire 60additiona employees, bringing additional payrol to the area of $3.5 The expansion also brings $30 million in spendingf to New Mexico.
The Albuquerque City Councill approveda $100 million industrial revenu e bond deal for the company in BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landecd the design/build contract to buils the expansion, but Bone said 80 percentr of the firm’s spending and employees will be The precast panels being used in the constructio are manufacturedin Belen. Generalo Mills has been in Albuquerquesince 1991. Its currentr facility is located near Paseo del Nortr and Edith and has190 employees, with an annual payroll of $12 said Bone.
The 275,000-square-foof plant produces about 135 million pounds annually of 35 different The facility also has alab on-site whers the instructions for baking General Mills products at high altitudeas are created. The company has givehn about $5 million to area nonprofitsa since 1998and $519,000 in scholarships, Bone added. Don chairman of AED, said the cereal company’e donations illustrate one of the things the organizatiomn looks for inrecruiting companies: community involvement.
Hudginxs said Solar Array plansd to break ground by the third quarterd of this year ona 225,000-square-foot thin-filjm photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Corderoi Mesa business park, west of the mattres s factory. The company plans to add three more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facilitg employing about 225. Its annualp payroll in the first phase would be $14 million. About five percent of the jobs woulfdpay $100,000, 45 percent woul d pay $70,000 and half of the jobs would pay $45,000. The capitakl investment for the first phase willbe $170 millionh and the company would spen d $40 million annually for raw materials.
The firsrt phase is expected to have a capacitu of75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a spac that will serve as a communityh and educational center. Solar Array is seeking $175 milliohn in industrial revenue bonds fromBernalillo County. The company is workiny to raise $210 million in debt and equity, Hudgins said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two othetr states forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offedr the largest incentives.
But the coordination among locapl and state government officials and other partiesw made New Mexico far more efficiengt in establishing a planning framework that the companyy could then use to plan a budget for the hesaid “That was a major issue for Hudgins said. He also praisedd the labor force here and theeducationalp institutions. The facility is being designed byPageSoutherlandPag LLP, which has Texas offices in Dallas and Houston, as well as Denver, Washington, D.C. and U.K. Hoffman Construction, based in Portland, Ore.
, is building the