March 30, 2010 GlobalFoundries seeks approval to expand new factory By DREW KERR
MALTA -- Officials with GlobalFoundries filed an application this week with the town of Malta that, if approved, would allow the computer chip-maker to expand the $4.6 billion factory being built in the town.
The application comes after reports late last week that company leaders have asked New York lawmakers for incentives worth as much as $300 million to help finance the addition to a facility under construction at the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
Travis Bullard, a spokesman for GlobalFoundries, said on Tuesday the company had hoped to have a decision about the funding request as early as Monday, but a response is now being sought by the end of April.
The hope is the site plan amendments submitted to the Malta planning department will also be approved by the end of April, so company officials can make a decision about whether to go forward with the expansion and take advantage of construction crews already on site.
"We want to make sure we have all the approvals we need so that we can move quickly when we make a decision," Bullard said. "The one thing we cannot afford to do is jeopardize the construction schedule in any way."
Company officials have said they want the facility to be finished by late 2011 and to be operational by the end of 2012.
Work on the expansion would take up to six months, but the overall completion date would remain unaffected, according to documents the company filed with the town this week.
Though company officials are seeking new approvals from the town, that should not be seen as a definitive indication the firm is moving ahead with the expansion, Bullard said.
"We still don't know if we're going to be able to move forward, and we're still considering lots of options," he said.
Expansions are also being contemplated at GlobalFoundries' computer chip-making facilities in Dresden, Germany and in Singapore, as demand for the company's manufacturing capacity grows.
According to the site plan amendment application submitted to the town, the GlobalFoundries factory, known as Fab 8, would total 491,054 square feet with the expansion. It is now designed to be 325,586 square feet.
The addition would include 90,000 square feet of clean room space - the ultra-pure environment in which computer chips are made - according to the company's application.
The facility as planned will have 210,000 square feet of clean room space, enough to produce up to 40,000 computer chips a month.
Company officials also state in the application that the number of estimated workers employed at the facility - 1,465 permanent employees and up to 1,900 temporary construction workers - will not change as a result of the expansion.
Bullard said, though, that the statement "just means that we don't know what the new jobs number will be yet."
"The total number of jobs would depend on how we ultimately equip and utilize the additional square footage, and we are not that far along on our planning at this point," he added.
If the expansion is approved, company officials also state in the application they expect the facility to need an average of 4.6 million gallons of water a day and produce an average of 3.9 million gallons of waste water.
The infrastructure is sufficient to meet that demand, and the numbers are within limits previously approved by the town, company officials said.
The Malta planning board is not scheduled to meet until April 20, but it may conduct a special meeting to consider the proposal as early as next week, town officials said.
Finishing the review by the end of April should not be difficult, said Anthony Tozzi, the town's building and planning coordinator.
"Ultimately, that's up to the planning board, but my own personal perspective is that we had always known an expansion was possible, so this isn't entirely unknown," he said.
