May 02, 2009 GlobalFoundries: Chip fabrication plant very close
By DREW KERR
dkerr@poststar.com
Updated: Saturday, May 2, 2009 1:18 AM EDT
QUEENSBURY - The rubber is about to meet the road.
That was the message officials with GlobalFoundries sent area business leaders who met on Friday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Warren County Economic Development Corp.
"Optimistically, we are within days of saying, 'Yup,'" Terry Caudell, the project manager for the company's proposed development at the Luther Forest Technology Campus, told about 250 people at the Great Escape lodge. "We really are very, very close to starting."
GlobalFoundries -- a partnership between Advanced Micro Devices and an Abu Dhabi investment firm forged earlier this year -- has yet to buy any land for its computer chip fabrication plant or make a formal commitment to the project.
The company must make a commitment within the next three months or lose out on a $1.2 billion incentive package from the state. The offer includes $650 million in cash and a series of tax breaks for building in Saratoga County.
Company leaders have said since March that they are close to buying about 220 acres of land at the tech park, which straddles the Malta-Stillwater town line.
On Friday, they said the land buy, estimated to cost the company between $7 million and $8 million, could come as early as next week. A formal commitment to the project would closely follow, they said.
A general contractor will then be named, and ground-clearing will start.
Travis Bullard, public affairs manager for GlobalFoundries, said trucks could be moving dirt within weeks.
A formal groundbreaking for the $4.2 billion computer chip factory is expected to occur in July.
As many as 5 million work hours will be needed to lay the foundation, build the steel frame and construct an 883,000-square-foot plant.
As many as 1,900 laborers will be used to build the plant, along with three support buildings.
The company expects to employ about 1,400 people when the plant opens in 2012, making it one of the biggest economic development projects in the region's history.
GlobalFoundries officials hope to build computer chips for customers that lack their own production facilities.
The "fabless model" has become increasingly popular as start-up costs escalate, but about 70 percent of such plants that exist now are in Asia.
Bullard said many companies are looking for a production facility in the U.S. capable of meeting their needs.
"They're very excited to know we are bucking the trend and bringing a fables model to the U.S.," he said.
For now, though, the company's only customer remains AMD.
"Our job, over the next 12 to 18 months, is to bring in that second and third customer," Bullard said.
As many as 5,000 indirect jobs are also expected to be created from the development, producing a cumulative payroll of $290 million annually, officials have estimated.
Leonard Fosbrook, president of the Warren County Economic Development Committee, said at the event that benefits from the development will stretch up the Northway and into the Glens Falls region.
"I don't expect things to heat up for another two to three years, but when they put the shovel in the ground, that's when things will begin to really pick up," he said.
Fosbrook said the development is a bright spot in an economic downturn that has affected even stable industries in the area, such as medical device manufacturers.
"It certainly takes a little bit of the pain away from what we're experiencing now," he said.
