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Tuesday's announcement that the company will spin off its manufacturing component with the creation of a new company they will jointly own with Advanced Technology Investment Company has boosted the spirits of local officials awaiting construction of a new chip fab in Malta. The plant is being listed among the priorities of the new company, temporarily known as The Foundry Company.
Tisdale and other AMD officials who joined him at the event did not set a date for signing on the dotted line for the project.
Two things need to happen before they can sign, said Terry Caudell, AMD's project manager for the Malta site.
Caudell said the newly formed company must meet all the regulatory requirements of the federal government and all the incentives promised by the state must be transferred to the new company.
What they did commit to at Wednesday's gathering was an on-site presence at the Luther Forest Technology Campus beginning Dec. 1 and providing $5 million to the towns of Malta and Stillwater to be dedicated to community projects within each town. Caudell said the company will begin leasing 9,000 square feet of space from the nearby Saratoga Technology + Energy Park (STEP), also located in the Luther Forest Technology Campus. Caudell will be based out of the space as he begins to gather together a team related to the construction of the Malta site.
"We have a long standing relationship with them," said Tom Lynch, spokesperson for NYSERDA, regarding the decision to offer AMD the lease opportunity. "We have a lot of shared interests." Lynch said he expects about 12 jobs to be coming in through AMD at the outset with that number expected to expand to 40 as time progresses. AMD will join a number of other companies, including Starfire, in the LEED silver certified building.
The $5 million community host benefits have been "agreed to in principle" said Tisdale. He said $1 million of the money is slated to be used for the construction of a ball field complex on the 32 acres of land in LFTC owned by the Town of Malta. The details how many and what size will be sorted out later but the town supervisors of Malta and Stillwater were each presented with baseball bats as a token of AMD's commitment.
The remaining $4 million will be divided up between the two towns to fund a variety of community projects agreed upon by committees developed by each of the towns.
The money will be given out over the next four years with Tisdale saying AMD's intention is for the money to "go to projects that members of the community think are appropriate and will improve their quality of life."
The actual breakdown of how much money each town will get is still undecided. Most of the proposed site and buildings will be located in the town of Malta with a small portion in Stillwater.
Although the elected supervisors of the two towns expressed their pleasure with the commitments AMD has made thus far other speakers at the event focused on the benefits to the region at large.
"Do you know what our principal export is in the Capital District?" asked Bob Hayes, chairman of the Luther Forest Technology Campus board and a board member of Saratoga Economic Development Corporation. "The truth is our biggest export is our children. Today you are seeing a paradigm shift in that equation."
Former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno reiterated the statement in saying the state has lost 1 million people in the past ten years.
"This announcement has been heard around the world," said Bruno. "Others turned this down. A lot of people turned this down."
He like many others who spoke at the event made reference to the non-believers who doubted the project would ever become reality.
Bruno and others spoke about the state's commitment of funding to the project talking about the state's incentive package serving as an investment.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce president Joe Dalton said studies indicate "every penny the state lays out it will get back within three years."
"To the naysayers . . . guess what, guys, it happened," Dalton said.
