Solar Array, Gen. Mills detail expansions - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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broke ground April 5 on the $100 176,000-square-foot expansion of its manufacturingfacilit here, Keith Bone, general manager of the local facility, told memberse of . AED held its quarterlt meeting Thursdayat . Joe Hudgins, president and CEO of Solat Array Ventures, outlined his company’s plan to build a massiver solar manufacturing plant onthe city’sz Westside. General Mills’ expansion shoulc be completedby November, Bone The cereal manufacturer will hire 60 additional bringing additional payroll to the area of $3.5 million.
The expansionb also brings $30 million in spending to New The Albuquerque City Council approvedda $100 million industrial revenue bond deal for the companuy in February. BE&K Corp. from North Carolina landed the design/build contract to builrd the expansion, but Bone said 80 percent of the firm’s spending and employees will be The precast panels being used in the constructiohn are manufacturedin Belen. General Mills has been in Albuquerquesincer 1991.
Its current facility is located near Paseio del Norte and Edith and has190 employees, with an annual payroll of $12 million, said The 275,000-square-foot plant produces about 135 millioj pounds annually of 35 different The facility also has a lab on-site where the instructions for baking General Mills products at high altitudes are The company has givenh about $5 million to area nonprofits since 1998 and $519,00o0 in scholarships, Bone Don Power, chairman of AED, said the cereal company’d donations illustrate one of the things the organization looks for in recruitintg companies: community involvement.
Hudgins said Solar Array plans to break groundr by the third quarter of this year ona 225,000-square-footy thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the Cordero Mesa businesws park, west of the mattress The company plans to add three more buildings of that size as it he said, with each facility employing about 225. Its annual payrolol in the first phase wouldbe $14 About five percent of the jobs woulr pay $100,000, 45 percent would pay $70,000 and half of the jobs would pay The capital investment for the firsyt phase will be $170 million and the company woul d spend $40 million annually for raw The first phase is expected to have a capacityh of 75 megawatts, but that would grow to 300 mw with the full The plant also will have a space that will serve as a community and educational center.
Solat Array is seeking $175 millionb in industrial revenue bondse fromBernalillo County. The company is working to raise $210 millionn in debt and equity, Hudginsa said. Hudgins said New Mexico beat out two othedr states forthe plant, despite the fact that it did not offed the largest incentives. But the coordination among locakl and state government officials and otherr parties made New Mexico far more efficient in establishing a planning frameworki that the company could then use to plan a budgeyt forthe plant, he said “That was a major issue for us,” Hudgins said.
He also praised the labo r force here and the educational The facility is being designerd byPageSoutherlandPage LLP, whicg has Texas offices in Austin, Dallaes and Houston, as well as Washington, D.C. and London, U.K. Hoffman based in Portland, Ore., is building the