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

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacility here, Keith Bone, generaol manager of the local facility, told members of . AED held its quarterluy meeting Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, presidentt and CEO of Solad Array Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to buildc a massive solar manufacturing plant onthe city’s General Mills’ expansion should be completedc by November, Bone said. The cerealo manufacturer will hire 60additionap employees, bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.5 The expansion also brings $30 million in spendingb to New Mexico.
The Albuquerque City Councipl approveda $100 million industrial revenud bond deal for the company in BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landec the design/build contract to buil d the expansion, but Bone said 80 percen t of the firm’s spending and employeexs willbe local. The precast panelas being used in the construction are manufactured in General Mills has been in Albuquerquesincd 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 plant produces about 135 million pounds annuallyy of 35different cereals.
The facility also has a lab on-sitew where the instructions for baking General Milld products at high altitudes are The company has givenabout $5 million to area nonprofits since 1998 and $519,0000 in scholarships, Bone added. Don Power, chairman of AED, said the cereal company’s donations illustrate one of the thingds the organization looks for inrecruitinbg companies: community involvement. Hudgins said Solar Array plans to break grouns by the third quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-fooyt thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Corder Mesa business park, west of the mattress factory.
The company plans to add three more buildingsw of that size asit grows, he with each facility employing about 225. Its annual payrol in the first phase wouldbe $14 million. About five percentt of the jobs would pay 45 percent wouldpay $70,000 and half of the jobs woulxd pay $45,000. The capital investment for the first phases willbe $170 million and the company wouldr spend $40 million annually for raw The first phase is expected to have a capacityu of 75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a space that will servde as a community and educational center. Solar Arrag is seeking $175 milliob in industrial revenue bonds fromBernalillo County.
The compan y is working to raise $210 milliojn in debt and equity, Hudginzs said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two othedr states forthe plant, despites the fact that it did not offer the largesty incentives. But the coordination among local and state government officialws and other parties made New Mexico far more efficient in establishing a planning framework that the company coulr then use to plan a budget for the hesaid “That was a major issus for us,” Hudgins said. He also praisedr the labor force here and theeducationa institutions. The facility is being designedf byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, which has Texas offices in Dallas and Houston, as well as Washington, D.C.
and London, U.K. Hoffmanm Construction, based in Portland, Ore., is building the