Windmill blade factory to open in '08

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 21, 2007 at midnight

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A Denmark-based company plans to open a $59.9 million, 180,000-square-foot windmill blade factory in the Great Western Industrial Park in Windsor that will employ more than 400 people.

The Rocky Mountain News first reported the deal with Vestas Blades in January. Construction will start in the coming weeks with an opening in 2008 for the facility that will serve as the North American headquarters for the company that manufactures blades for 31,000 turbines in 60 countries.

Each job at the facility could create two spinoff jobs, said Larry Burkhardt, president and CEO of Upstate Colorado Economic Development. It also will help establish northern Colorado as a center for companies in the fast-growing sustainable energy business, he said.

Burkhardt anticipates production jobs to make the 128-foot-long blades will pay in the $30,000s and the new management positions will start in the $60,000s.

State, county and other sources will kick in what probably will amount to "a couple of million dollars" in economic incentives, he said.

He said that Vestas looked at other states, elsewhere in Colorado and even Canada. The new facility will be served by the Great Western Railway, which is owned by Denver-based OmniTRAX, a subsidiary of the Denver-based Broe Cos. Rail service to the site was crucial to the deal, Burkhardt said.

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207

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