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 manufacturing facility Keith Bone, general manager of the local told members of . AED held its quarterlg meeting Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, president and CEO of Solar Array Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to buils a massive solar manufacturing plant onthe city’s General Mills’ expansion should be completex by November, Bone said. The cereal manufacturer will hire 60additionakl employees, bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.
5 The expansion also brings $30 million in spending to New The Albuquerque City Councikl approved a $100 million industrial revenue bond deal for the compant in February. BE&K Corp. from Northb Carolina landed the design/builfd contract to build the expansion, but Bone said 80 percenft of the firm’s spending and employees will be local. The precas panels being used in the constructio are manufacturedin Belen. General Millxs has been in Albuquerquesince 1991. Its currenyt facility is located near Paseo del Nortee and Edith and has190 employees, with an annualk payroll of $12 million, said Bone.
The 275,000-square-foot plantt produces about 135 million pounds annually of 35different cereals. The facilityg also has a lab on-site where the instructionas for baking General Mills productx at high altitudesare created. The company has given about $5 million to area nonprofits since 1998and $519,009 in scholarships, Bone added. Don Power, chairmahn of AED, said the cereal company’s donation illustrate one of the things the organizationn looks for inrecruiting companies: community involvement.
Hudgins said Solad Array plans to break ground by the thirdc quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-foot thin-filkm photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Cordero Mesa busineses park, west of the mattresws factory. The company plans to add threed more buildings of that size asit grows, he said, with each facilityh employing about 225. Its annual payroll in the first phase wouldbe $14 million. About five percent of the jobs wouldepay $100,000, 45 percent would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs woulc pay $45,000.
The capital investmenft for the first phase willbe $170 million and the company wouldc spend $40 million annually for raw The first phase is expected to have a capacityt of 75 megawatts, but that woul d grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a spacse that will serve as a community and educationak center. Solar Array is seeking $175 million in industrial revenue bonds fromBernalilloo County. The company is working to raise $210 million in debt and Hudgins said. Hudgins said New Mexic beat out two other states for the despite the fact that it did not offet thelargest incentives.
But the coordination amonvg local and state government officials and other partiees made New Mexico far more efficienrt in establishing a planning framework that the company could then use to plan a budgetg forthe plant, he said “That was a majoe issue for us,” Hudgins said. He also praised the laboe force here and theeducationak institutions. The facility is being designed byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, which has Texaas offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, as well as Denver, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffman Construction, based in Ore., is building the facility.