Posts by: Economic Development HQ.com

Monsanto Announces $400M R&D Expansion in Chesterfield, MO

Creve Coeur, Missouri-based bioscience and sustainable agriculture company Monsanto (NYSE: MON) announced that it is planning to consolidate its St. Louis-based R&D operations onto a single campus, which will require a $400 million expansion of its Chesterfield research facility.

Monsanto

Photo – Monsanto/wikipedia

The expansion will create 675 new high-paying jobs, in addition to 700 construction jobs. The 1.5 million-square-foot Chesterfield Village Research Center already has 1,000 employees.

Apart from the new research building, the expansion also involves the construction of 250 laboratories and 36 greenhouses, in addition to other plant growth chambers that can be set to climates from different parts of the world.

The existing site already has 250 labs, greenhouses over two acres, and 122 plant growth chambers. Once this expansion is complete, labs currently located in the headquarters in Creve Coeur will be moved to Chesterfield, freeing up more space for other uses.

The building, which is expected to be LEED certified, should be complete and ready for occupation by 2017.

Gov. Jay Nixon said in a statement that the major investment by Monsanto and the hundreds of high-tech and high-paying jobs further establishes Missouri as a powerhouse in the biotech sector.

Jerry Steiner, executive vice president, sustainability and corporate affairs at Monsanto, said the expansion ensures that the company’s researchers would have the facilities required to come up with the next generation of agricultural products.

St. Louis County Executive Charlie Doole said that Monsanto had turned into a magnet for attracting some of the world’s leading scientists to the region, and this new expansion would have a huge impact on the local economy.

Monsanto considered other locations, but their long relationship with the state (founded in St. Louis in 1901) coupled with the county’s plan to provide $22 million in tax breaks for Monsanto sealed the deal.

The Missouri Development Finance Board has been asked to provide Build Missouri bonds worth $9.5 million, and the company also qualifies for $22 million in tax credits under the Quality Jobs program.

Monsanto generated $13.5 billion in revenues last year, and the company has around 22,000 employees all over the world.

Facebook Announces $300M Data Center in Altoona, Iowa

Facebook has officially announced that it has chosen Altoona, Iowa as the site for its third data center in the United States and fourth in the world, following existing data centers in Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina, in addition to another one in Luleå, Sweden.

Rendering of Facebook data center in Altoona, IA

Rendering of Facebook data center in Altoona, IA (photo – Facebook)

Facebook will invest a minimum of $299.5 million for the project, which is expected to create 31 jobs at average hourly wages of $23.12.

This investment will be for the first phase of the project, and will be used to build a 476,000-square-foot energy efficient data center with an outdoor cooling system.

Facebook has applied for and got approval from the City of Altoona for a total of three such phases.

The total investment for all phases combined at this time is estimated to be a billion dollars, with the possibility of the project being further expanded to 1.4 million square feet for a total investment by Facebook of $1.5 billion.

Facebook is planning for a green design for the building that will enable it to apply for LEED Gold certification.

Altoona Mayor Skip Conkling said he wanted to thank all parties involved for helping the city secure the project.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) held a meeting today during which it approved $18 million in incentives for Facebook under the state’s High Quality Jobs program. This includes $8 million in sales tax refunds for equipment and construction material purchase, and another $10 million in tax credits.

The City of Altoona has additionally agreed to a 20-year property tax abatement.

Jay Parikh, vice president of infrastructure engineering for Facebook, said that they were excited about having found a new home in Iowa with its plentiful wind energy and a great talent pool that would help them build and operate the data center.

Facebook will break ground on the site this summer, and will have the facility operational by next year.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad was also on hand for the announcement in Altoona, and said that Facebook’s selection of Altoona for its data center would further cement Iowa’s status as a destination for tech companies.

Coincidentally (or not…), the same IEDA board meeting also approved a request by Google for more tax credits for another $400 million expansion of its Council Bluffs, Iowa data center.

This will be on top of the initial $600 million investment and the $300 million expansion announced last year by Google, for which the state had approved $9.6 million in tax incentives. Google had applied to have it increased to $16.8 million to facilitate this latest $400 million expansion.

NYC Launches Pilot Program to Integrate Electric Taxicabs

NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg got the first ride in the city’s first all-electric taxi, one of six Nissan Leaf vehicles donated by the company to the City for a pilot taxicab program that could eventually “electrify” a full one-third of New York’s 13,237 iconic yellow medallion taxicabs.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg takes first electric taxi ride

NYC Mayor Bloomberg takes first electric taxi ride (photo – NYC Mayor’s Office/Spencer T Tucker)

The pilot program is meant to find out if the six Nissan LEAF electric vehicles will be able to keep up with the 24/7 business and operational model of the NYC taxi industry.

It will help the city’s TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) come up with the foundation for a plan to convert one-third of the taxi fleet to electric vehicles by 2020.

If that eventually leads to an all-electric taxi fleet, the environmental and financial benefits would be significant, including:-

- Reduction in 90,000 tons of annual Co2 emissions;

- Reduction in fuel costs, which are around$17,500 per year at current gas prices; and

- Reduction in maintenance costs due to the elimination of wear and tear associated with internal-combustion engines.

Mayor Bloomberg said that even though the “Taxi of Tomorrow” won’t be on the roads for another six months, they were already looking at the taxi for the day after tomorrow. He added that the Nissan Leaf project would help provide answers to important questions on how to incorporate electric taxis into the fleet.

The Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability worked on this project in partnership with the U.S. Energy Department, NYC Transportation Department, and the New York Power Authority, among others.

Seward Park Cooperative is helping provide the electric vehicle fast charging stations required for the pilot program. These fast charges installed at several locations will be capable of charging the LEAF battery from zero to 80 percent in half an hour, making it possible for the vehicle to be used even by single shift drivers on a tight schedule.

Sergej Mahnovski, director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, said that meeting the one-third fleet electrification goal would be the equivalent of taking 50,000 regular cars off the road.

Joe Castelli, vice president, Nissan Commercial Vehicles, said that the LEAF taxi pilot in New York would help the company improve its electric vehicle technologies for future applications.

The Solar Foundation Report on National Solar Jobs Census

The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit The Solar Foundation (TSF) put out its third annual solar jobs census, which shows that the U.S. solar industry now supports 119,016 jobs, which is a 13.2 percent (13,872 jobs) growth in solar jobs in 2012 as compared to 2011.

National Solar Jobs Census

National Solar Jobs Census (photo – thesolarfoundation.org)

Solar jobs are defined by TSF as those where workers spent at least half their time on solar related job functions.

California leads the rankings of the top 10 states with the most solar jobs. The Golden State has a full one-third of all solar jobs in the country, which is four times higher than the 9,800 jobs in Arizona, which is ranked second followed by New Jersey in third place.

These three states also top the rankings for the most solar capacity. Although New York does not figure in the top three states for solar jobs or installed capacity, it does top the list of states providing the most public workforce funding for solar companies, followed by California and Texas.

Andrea Luecke, executive director of TSF, said that this latest data proved that the solar industry has become a dependable job creator, and that employers were confident about further growth in 2013.

As per the census, nearly 45 percent of solar firms will be adding new jobs, while less than four percent will be cutting jobs.

A majority of the jobs (57,177) are in the installation sub-sector. Solar manufacturing jobs actually fell by 8,000 last year, but the number is expected to grow by nine percent this year. Finance, R&D and “other” solar industry jobs accounted for 8,105 jobs. This sub-sector grew at a stunning 46.1 percent.

Gianluca Signorelli, renewable energy finance manager at Rabobank, N.A., said in a statement that the bank’s solar team has grown to manage the increase in demand for solar financing, and this spurt in demand has obviously led to employment growth across all sub-sectors in the solar industry.

Causes of growth listed in the report are reduced component pricing, favorable state legislation and federal tax incentives. The report notes that if costs continue to decrease, the increase in installation demand will require the solar industry to provide employment for 340,000 workers by 2030.

Read the full TSF National Solar Jobs Census 2012 – Download (pdf)

Altoona, IA Inches Ahead in Bid for $1.5B Facebook Data Center

It was revealed during the weekend that the mysterious company scouting sites in Iowa and Nebraska for a $1.5 billion data center is actually Facebook.

Facebook data center in Oregon

Facebook data center in Oregon (photo – facebook.com)

Until now, this massive project with three $500 million phases had only been known as Project Catapult in Altoona, Iowa and Project Edge in Kearney, Nebraska.

The company has been considering its options and negotiating with local and state authorities in both states since early last year.

Facebook already has similarly large multi-facility data centers in North Carolina and Oregon, and is looking to add one in the middle of the country.

In plans filed with Altoona, the owner of the 200-acre Catapult Data Center site is listed as Hubbell Properties II, LC. The initial plan included three buildings, each between 350,000 to 380,000 square feet in size. The first phase was to involve construction of one 382,252 square feet building.

This plan was approved by the Altoona City Council in June 2012, extended in Dec 2012 and then re-approved in Feb 2013. Then the company filed an amended plan which further expands all three buildings to 466,500 square feet each. This amended plan was approved by Altoona in March 2013.

This week, both the Altoona City Council and the Iowa Economic Development Authority Board will be holding meetings to consider incentives for this project. Facebook has also apparently requested wind energy tax credits from Iowa, which will require new legislation.

Details about the incentives and jobs likely to be created by the data center, assuming Altoona lands the project, should be made clear after the meetings this week.

Meanwhile, back in Nebraska, Kearney has already spent close to $2 million to purchase and prepare a 165-acre site for the Project Edge data center. They are calling it the Tech oNE Crossing technology park.

Nebraska legislators have approved and passed legislation authorizing incentives for the project, including tax refunds for sales tax for construction material and equipment purchase, property tax exemptions, and other tax incentives. Lawmakers also directed Nebraska Public Power District to offer Project Edge low-cost power.

However, based on the flurry of activity by state and local officials in Iowa coupled with the company’s recent interest in getting approval for modified plans in Altoona, it looks like Iowa seems to be getting ready to snatch Facebook away from Nebraska.

MD Congressional Delegation Makes a Pitch for FBI HQ Relocation

The pitched battle between Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia to secure the new FBI headquarters entered a new stage after the entire Maryland congressional delegation sent the agency heads of the FBI and GSA letters asking them to select a viable site in Prince George’s County, MD as the future home of the FBI.

FBI headquarters

FBI headquarters (photo – fbi.gov)

This FBI headquarters relocation project has been in the works for a long time now.

The FBI and GSA had decided that modernizing or demolishing and replacing the current J. Edgar Hoover Building headquarters was not feasible, and they decided the FBI and its 11,000 employees in the D.C. area should be consolidated into a single new location.

The initial plan was to sell the Hoover building and use the sale proceeds and savings from consolidation to pay for the lease of the new headquarters.

A site would be chosen, and a developer would be given the contract to build the facility and lease it to the FBI. The new site would have to be within 2.5 miles of the D.C. beltway, and no more than two miles from a metro station.

This was back in Dec 2011, and there have been quite a few new developments since then. For starters, the GSA has decided that instead of selling the Hoover Building, they should simply hand it over to the chosen developer as an exchange deal in return for a new state-of-the-art complex.

This system neatly cuts through a lot of bureaucratic red tape involved in the buying and selling of federal properties. It disposes of the GSA’s excess real estate inventory while simultaneously leveraging the property to create savings for governmental agencies. This approach has been championed at the GSA by Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini.

The GSA put out an RFI (request for information) for this proposal, and received 35 bids from developers interested in the swap.

In their letter to Tangherlini, the Maryland congressional delegation said they applaud the RFI issued by the GSA.

They added that “We strongly encourage GSA to choose a site in Prince George’s County Maryland. We understand that competition for this facility will be fierce among the region’s jurisdictions, but we firmly believe that an honest analysis of the cost of operations, security, convenience of location for staff, transportation options, and the promotion of regional equity in federal facility distribution should make Maryland the choice location for the FBI.”

The letter notes that a full 43 percent of FBI employees reside in Maryland, while Virginia has 33 percent and Washington D.C. only 17 percent.  They claim that moving the headquarters to Maryland would make it more convenient for a majority of employees, save on transportation costs, and would boost employee morale.

They also added that Maryland’s wealth of cybersecurity companies and contractors makes it a strategic location for the FBI, and would provide the agency greater access to experts working on cybersecurity R&D and applications.

iStorage Makes Winter Garden, FL HQ Relocation Official

Last year in Oct, then California-based storage company iStorage, also known as the Storage Management and Leasing Co., had announced its decision to relocate its headquarters to Winter Garden, Florida, and subsequently moved into a short-term lease space in Winter Garden.

Winter Garden, FL

Winter Garden, FL (photo – Joe Shlabotnik/flickr)

iStorage has now made the move official and announced that it will establish a permanent corporate headquarters in Winter Garden, invest $3.02 million and create 36 new jobs.

The company already has 12 employees in Winter Garden. The 36 new jobs will have average annual wages of $46,638, not including benefits.

Enterprise Florida, the City of Winter Garden and the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission all teamed up to lay out the red carpet for iStorage, which has quickly grown into a $200 million company with more than 26 properties across the U.S.

Florida and Winter Garden successfully competed for the project against San Diego, Calif. and Austin, Texas. iStorage was offered $270,000 in tax incentives under the QTI (Qualified Target Industry) Tax Refund program.

The City of Winter Garden’s share of the QTI refund was $54,000, with the state picking up the rest of the $216,000 tab as a matching incentive. These are performance-based incentives which will not be paid out until the company actually creates the required number of jobs.

The city also affirmed designation of the proposed iStorage headquarters site as a Brownfield area, which makes them eligible for a Brownfield Development Bonus, which is again a performance-based incentive.

Mike Bollhoefer, Winter Garden’s city manager, said the downtown area was attractive for startups and entrepreneurs in search of a quality urban location and environment for their business.

FL Gov. Rick Scott added that iStorage’s selection of Winter Garden for their headquarters offered further evidence of business-friendly policies that were creating more jobs in Florida.

The company has said previously that they chose Winter Garden, located in Orange County about 14 miles west of Orlando, because of the quality of life and business friendly policies.

iStorage CEO Christopher Miller said they were excited to be developing their headquarters in Winter Garden, and stressed on the city’s “terrific” quality of life, family-oriented ties and healthy lifestyles.

Google to Invest $600M for Lenoir, NC Data Center Expansion

Google announced that it plans to invest another $600 million for an expansion of its data center in Lenoir, North Carolina.

Google Lenoir, NC data center

Google Lenoir, NC data center (photo – google.com)

The Lenoir data center project was announced by Google in 2007 with an initial investment of $600 million, so their total investment in Lenoir now stands at $1.2 billion.

The data center is now fully operational and already has 110 employees.

Google Data Center Operations Manager Enoch Moeller.said in a statement that when the company builds data centers, they choose sites big enough to accommodate future growth in a location where they can establish long-term commitments with the community.

Google has stated previously that it chose the Lenoir location because it offers the right combination of energy infrastructure and developable land.

The land will certainly come in handy for this latest $600 million expansion. As for the energy infrastructure – that is the real news today.

Google announced that it has managed to convince Duke Energy, which provides the power consumed by this data center, to provide a separate green tariff for companies like Google that want to purchase renewable energy.

Up to now, the problem with North Carolina’s data center cluster was that they could only be as green as Duke Energy was.

Duke has separate tariffs for home users, companies, and large-scale companies such as Google. What they will do now (if the state regulators approve it) is add one more green tariff category for companies that wish to buy power that comes from a renewable source.

Gary Demasi, Director, Global Infrastructure, Google, pointed out in a blog post the advantages of this approach where companies without the resources to directly generate clean energy on-site can use their utility company’s strength in power generation and delivery.

Google has previously published a whitepaper advocating this concept. Duke Energy will now be filing with the North Carolina Utilities Commission within the next three months. If approved, they will run a pilot test of this approach with Google for the Lenoir data center.

Paul Newton, Duke Energy state president for North Carolina, said the proposed renewable rate plan would help companies such as Google to enhance their sustainability efforts and boost the use of renewable energy in North Carolina.

Google has sunk a billion dollars into alternative energy ventures that can provide wind and solar power, and some of that may end up being actually used by Google in Lenoir if Duke decides to purchase renewable energy.

North American Lighting Announces $50M Expansion in Paris, IL

Automotive lighting supplier North American Lighting Inc. announced that it plans to invest $50 million for an expansion of its manufacturing plant in Paris, Illinois.

North American Lighting

North American Lighting (photo – nal.com)

North American Lighting is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan-based Koito Manufacturing Co. Ltd., and is the largest of North America’s non-affiliated lighting suppliers.

The expansion involves addition of 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space and new equipment for additional production lines that will create 300 new jobs.

The company already has 250,000 square feet of space at the Paris facility, which has more than 870 employees. The company has more than 2,600 full-time jobs in the region.

Greg Conrad, president and COO at North American Lighting, said the auto industry’s recovery meant more business for the company, which in turn meant that they were able to bring new business to Illinois. Conrad added that they were standing by their commitment to serve as an economic anchor for southeastern Illinois.

It helps, of course, that the state agreed to provide $4.4 million in incentives. This includes performance-based EDGE (Economic Development for a Growing Economy) tax credits worth $3.2 million over a 10-year period.

Another million dollar grant is being offered through the Large Business Development Program. Lastly, the company is eligible for $150,000 in training grants under the Employer Training Investment Program.

Adam Pollet, acting director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), said the new North American Lighting jobs in Paris would help energize (pun intended?) the area communities.

Pollet said the expansion was secured by Illinois because they had kept in touch with company officials ever since North American Lighting moved its corporate HQ to Paris, and knew exactly what the company needed in order to go ahead with the expansion.

Paris, IL has been the corporate headquarters of North American Lighting since 2005, and they have additional Illinois manufacturing facilities in Salem and Flora. North American Lighting has a production facility in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and a technology center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

GM Property in Pontiac, MI Acquired by Ultimate Soccer Arenas

The RACER Trust in charge of clean-up and sale of properties owned by the former General Motors Corp. announced that it has agreed on the terms for sale of 14.6 acres of GM land in Pontiac, Michigan to GTS Holdings and Ultimate Soccer Arenas.

Ultimate Soccer Arenas field

Ultimate Soccer Arenas field (photo – ultimatesoccerarenas.com)

The land being sold is adjacent to the current sporting complex of Ultimate Soccer Arenas, and will allow the company to double its space from 16 to 32 acres.

Ultimate Soccer Arenas will be spending around $8 million on the expansion project and will create 20 new full-time jobs and another 100 construction jobs. They already have more than 100 full-time and contract employees.

The expansion on the new land will include setting up two astro-turf fields and an indoor soccer field, along with additional parking space for 650 vehicles. The existing complex covers 267,000 square feet, and the expansion will take it to more than 335,000 square feet.

The company claims that this makes Ultimate Soccer Arenas the largest indoor and non-professional sports complex in the world.

Elliott P. Laws, Trustee of the RACER Trust, said that the opportunity was literally next door, and they are happy to help Ultimate Soccer Arenas increase their community presence, adding that the growth of the sports complex would benefit businesses offering services and the community as a whole.

George Derderian, co-owner of Ultimate Soccer Arenas, said they intend to create the world’s best campus for soccer and lacrosse, and the construction would be using green building technologies and lighting provided and built by local companies based in Michigan.

Pontiac Emergency Manager Louis Schimmel said Ultimate Soccer Arenas was an outstanding facility that regularly brings tens of thousands each year to Pontiac. Since its opening in 2007, the facility has now become popular enough that it attracts a million people each year, including competitors and fans who come to watch.

The Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response (RACER) Trust started off with 89 properties spread across 14 states after GM’s bankruptcy in 2009. RACER was put in charge of the environmental cleanup and reuse of GM properties in a way that would be beneficial to the communities in question and create new jobs.

So far, RACER has managed to complete sale transactions for 30 of the properties and have collected $25 million from the sale proceeds, with additional properties currently being used under contracts.

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