[February 10, 2010] M+W move a sign of high tech to come: Texas firm's relocation to Watervliet Arsenal seen as technology sector boon Tweet ALBANY, Feb 10, 2010 (Albany Times Union - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- M+W Group's plan to move its North American headquarters to the Watervliet Arsenal, creating 190 new jobs for the region, is a sign that even greater things are planned for the local technology sector. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced Tuesday that M+W Group, formerly known as M+W Zander, was moving its U.S. headquarters from the Dallas area to the arsenal where it has a regional office with about 60 people. M+W Group is the construction firm building GlobalFoundries' $4.2 billion computer chip factory in Saratoga County. The deal to move M+W Group from the Dallas suburb of Plano to Watervliet includes $6.5 million in state money, but the company has committed to spend $228.5 million at the arsenal over the next five years. In addition to boosting M+W Group's local employment to more than 250 -- the company also has an office at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering -- the company is also expected to subcontract an additional 200 workers locally. "This is yet another major high-tech victory for the Capital Region and the state of New York," Silver said. M+W Group's move was inspired by much more than the state assistance the company will receive to offset costs of retrofitting a new headquarters at Building 125 at the arsenal. In fact, the company, which has built computer chip factories all over the world, is moving its center of gravity here to be closer to its major semiconductor industry clients that are doing research at the NanoCollege. The same companies may also be supplying equipment to the GlobalFoundries factory, and could potentially be planning expansions here as well. Rick Whitney, the chief executive officer of M+W Group's U.S. operations, said the motivating factor for the move was to be closer to the increasing number of companies that do their research and development here, including IBM Corp., GlobalFoundries, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron. "This is the world headquarters for the commercialization of nanotechnology," Whitney said. In fact, the GlobalFoundries project is expected to be completed by 2012, long before M+W will have completed its expansion here. GlobalFoundries has space for two additional factories, or "fabs" at its property at the Luther Forest Technology Campus, but the Sunnyvale, Calif., company has not yet committed to those additional buildings. Whitney has said at previous speeches before local business leaders that he wouldn't be surprised if equipment suppliers to GlobalFoundries were to put regional headquarters here as well to be close to the factory. Alain Kaloyeros, CEO of the NanoCollege, said that M+W Group was pulled here like the rest of the semiconductor industry. For example, Sematech, the Austin-based computer chip consortium, also relocated a major portion of its research operations to the college last year. He said that M+W Group needs to know what types of facilities these companies are going to want for the computer chip manufacturing technology of the future. "Rick said 'We have to be here because this is the epicenter of the world,'" Kaloyeros said. "It's a great example of why the state has to invest long-term in companies." Tony Gaetano, president of the Arsenal Business and Technology Partnership, a nonprofit that has been developing unused buildings at the arsenal, says that M+W Group will eventually occupy between 25,000 and 30,000 square-feet of space at Building 125, which is also home to Vistec Semiconductor, another company that relocated to the arsenal. M+W Group also built Vistec's clean room. Larry Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at [email protected]. To see more of the Albany Times Union, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesunion.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Albany Times Union, N.Y. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]