Intel chooses Fort Collins site

FORT COLLINS — Intel Corp. ended almost a year of anxious speculation about its Northern Colorado plans today, announcing its intent to purchase the east Fort Collins building being vacated by Celestica Corp. to house Intel’s Fort Collins Design Center team.
At a City Hall news conference packed with political and economic all-stars, Intel officials said their choice was guided by the city’s quality of life and the Celestica building’s proximity to the 300-member team’s temporary quarters on the Hewlett-Packard Co. campus, just across East Harmony Road.
“Congratulations on making a very smart business decision,” Fort Collins City Manager Darin Atteberry told the two Intel representatives on hand. “This is just a great news day for Fort Collins.”
J.J. Johnston, president of the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp., saved Intel officials time and trouble by telling reporters they would not answer questions about the number of employees Intel expected to have working at the new site or about how much the company will spend.
The company’s decision means that over the next five years $51.6 million will flow directly into the region’s economy, Johnston said. The Intel jobs pay more than twice Larimer County’s median income of $35,500, he said.
These are amazing jobs – world-class,” Johnston said. “They’re higher-paying than others in the same sector. They’re well over the high 80s.”
Intel spokeswoman Judy Cara said 300 workers would initially be housed in the re-branded Celestica building, a gleaming, 200,000-square-foot office and manufacturing center that opened in 1997. Another 900 Intel workers are in jobs in Colorado Springs.
Intel made the Fort Collins announcement in conjunction with two others, one that the company would spend $190 million to upgrade its semiconductor plant in Colorado Springs, and another that it would invest $345 million in a similar plant in Hudson, Mass.
Both plants make logic, communications and flash memory chips, components in a broad range of electronic devices from computers to cell phones.
Intel’s regional shopping trip for a new site extended to Loveland and Windsor, Cara said.
“This was a competitive process,” she said. “Although we’re making this announcement today about Fort Collins, it’s really for the benefit of the entire region.”
NCEDC board chairman Stu MacMillan said the company narrowed its decision to the Celestica site and another, smaller building owned by LSI Logic Inc. on the northwest corner of the same intersection.
The fact that Intel chose the Celestica building is an indicator of more job growth ahead, Johnston said. “Why would they buy such a big building like that if they weren’t planning to use the space?” he said.
The investment that the company is making at the Colorado Springs site will “create a few hundred positions” at the fabrication plant in the next two years, the company said in a statement from its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters.
“This is evidence of the fact that Colorado’s economy is rebounding,” Colorado Lt. Gov. Jane Norton said at the Fort Collins City Hall ceremony. “It’s great to be celebrating this fabulous news for Fort Collins and all of Colorado. When high-tech companies are looking to locate and expand in Colorado, we want them to know that Colorado is open.”

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