July 21, 2010 Chip Plant still growing. By Drew Kerr - The Post-Star
MALTA -- A little more than a year ago, six earth-moving trucks with tires taller than most adults lurched onto the grounds of the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
Their mission: begin making way for GlobalFoundries' computer-chip plant.
Twelve months later, those machines seem a distant memory.
In what was a large, vegetated field are now hundreds of hard-hat wearing workers, a matrix of roads and a steady stream of trucks carrying supplies in and out. At the center of it all is a pair of monumental buildings now almost entirely encased in metal siding.
"We're on schedule and we're on budget, and it's pretty satisfying to say that," said Alan Asadoorian, the director of construction for M + W Zander, the general contractor behind the project.
Asadoorian walked through the hectic grounds on Tuesday afternoon.
The main factory, which will include about 300,000 square feet of production space when completed toward the end of 2012, is now almost entirely enclosed in insulated metal siding. Its roof, 85 feet above the ground, is almost done, too.
Work to install a network of pipes and electricity has begun, a complex task that will allow the building to be heated as construction inside continues over the course of the winter.
The office where GlobalFoundries' staff will eventually locate, and a next-door central-utility building that will house the water treatment systems, the power supply and the heating and cooling components, are also marching toward completion.
The $4.6 billion project is roughly 40 percent complete, construction officials said.
Even as the project has grown, complaints from surrounding homeowners remain muted.
A community meeting held on the site Tuesday and attended by nearly two dozen area residents drew more questions about business opportunities and progress than traffic and noise.
The placid reception is what local leaders and company officials had hoped for when the project began.
New roads and large noise-blocking berms were built to mitigate the construction impacts, while material suppliers like the concrete provider moved their operations on-site to eliminate back-and-forth traffic through the community.
"I think there are still a lot of people in the community who have no idea what we're doing back here," said Art Kaplan, a project manager for M + W.
The project has also raised few eyebrows because it has suffered few major accidents.
Despite having upward of 900 workers and managers on the grounds every day, only one worker has been hurt at all badly, when he was pinned between two pieces of equipment and hurt his pelvis.
Earlier this month, two workers became trapped in a 5,000-gallon water storage tank being built near GlobalFoundries, in part to supply the factory.
Although the tower is not being built by M + W specifically for GlobalFoundries, Malta Supervisor Paul Sausville said local emergency responders lacked the capabilities to respond and he wished the companies benefiting from the work would have stepped in to lend their expertise.
That didn't happen, and Sausville said he is now reviewing the response to see if future events can be handled differently.
"We're hopeful that as we get down the road that they may be a little more helpful with expertise the town lacks," he said.
Progress on the physical structures is being matched by an increase in the employee ranks.
M + W, which is moving its headquarters to Albany, has grown from a staff of six to more than 120 people. GlobalFoundries now has 65 people working out of its temporary offices at the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park; more than 200 will work there by the end of the year.
Construction crews are also expected to climb in the coming months.
About 60 new workers are given access to the site each week, and as many as 1,700 people are expected to be working there this winter as construction hits its zenith.
The number of construction workers on site is slightly higher than originally forecast because of an expansion announced in June that will add another 90,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
Looking forward, Asadoorian said the hope is to have most of the construction work done by this time next year. Then the company can begin installing the computer-chipmaker's tools - the multimillion dollar pieces of equipment used in the chip production. Installing that equipment is expected to take a year to 18 months.
Low-volume production, intended to test the equipment, could begin in early 2012. A full ramp-up of production could begin in 2013.
Despite the project's feverish trajectory, high stakes and massive scale, Asadoorian said there have been limited difficulties to overcome to date.
"The biggest obstacle hasn't been found yet," he said. "We're hoping we never find it."
