AMD Fab Technologies, also known as The Foundry Company, filed a site plan for a $4.6 billion microchip manufacturing facility with the Town of Malta’s Building and Planning Department on Monday, Feb. 2, providing specifics on elements of the project that were only addressed generally until now.
The massive application outlines an 822,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, or fab, with a support spine, administrative offices and a utility building located adjacent, for a total footprint of 1,327,420-square-feet. The facility will be located on 222 acres of land in the Luther Forest Technology Campus, 163 of which will lie in the Town of Malta. The rest is located in neighboring Stillwater.
The applicant is requesting that the site plan be approved in three stages, rather than all at once. With such a sizable document, it will probably take months for the town’s Planning Board to get through all of it, so AFT is hoping to get soil disturbance approval by the end of the month so they can start clearing the site in March.
`That three-step approval process is something we worked out with the town because of the scope and the sheer size of this project,` said AFT spokesman Travis Bullard. `We didn’t think it was feasible to run it through the exact same process as a retail store.`
Following a soil disturbance approval will be approval to erect temporary construction elements on the site, then the go-ahead for the whole project.
`We’d like to adhere to their timeline, but we have to do our due diligence,` said Malta Building and Planning Director Anthony Tozzi, when asked how quickly the board might move.
`It looks like they’ve provided a pretty complete package,` he added.
The Planning Board will devote the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month to working on the AFT site plan. Its first formal meeting will be on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at which time it will attack the soil disturbance element head on.
AFT’s timeline calls for clearing and earthwork in late March, followed by temporary buildings and construction structures going up in the spring and summer. Construction will hopefully begin in earnest in June, with buildings being finished between late June and mid-September of 2011.
The site plan calls for construction six days of the week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with some night and Sunday construction in the summer and into the winter of 2009, when foundations and structures are being laid.
The buildings are to range between two and three stories in height. A 5 million gallon water storage standpipe will be located in the southeastern corner of the site, in Stillwater, to be filled by water from the Saratoga County Water Authority.
AFT has also been in discussions with the DEC’s New York Environmental Leaders program, a voluntary initiative that was part of the town’s agreement with AMD to allow the facility. According to the site plan application, the chipmaker will have to half landfill and incineration diversion rates during construction, through means such as recycling, resale or on-site salvage.
Additionally, at least 5 percent of project materials, by weight, must be locally manufactured (defined as within 500 miles of the site).
The factory is expected to be up and running in 2012, and will employ 1,465.
Another two fabs with similar size and support buildings could be added in the future.
Construction will be made possible in part by a $25 million line of credit through Key Bank. Though the project is set to receive $1.2 billion in state incentives, and half of that in cash, much of the money won’t come through until the plant opens. The Key Bank `bridge` financing will be used for site planning and preparation, including development of sewer, water, natural gas and electrical infrastructure.
The official formation of the Foundry Company is also fast approaching. An AMD shareholder vote to accept billions in investments from Arab entities and create the manufacturing arm of AMD is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 10.
`It’s the last major closing condition that needs to be met to clear the way for the deal to close,` said Bullard.
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