Big potential for ConocoPhillips site

432 acres bought by energy giant could handle more than 10,000 people

John Rebchook and Gargi Chakrabarty

Friday, February 22, 2008

Darin McGregor / The Rocky

One of the many street signs at the StorageTek campus that will have to be changed now that the facility has been purchased by ConocoPhillips, which plans a technology and learning center.

The 432-campus in Louisville purchased by ConocoPhillips could be rezoned to easily handle 10,000 or more people, several experts said Thursday.

That would be 3,000 people more than Storage Technology employed at its peak at the site along U.S. 36, which Conoco Phillips, the giant energy company, purchased for $58.5 million in January from Sun Microsystems.

Gov. Bill Ritter on Wednesday revealed that ConocoPhillips purchased the site for a new Global Technology Center and Corporate Learning Center but said Conoco didn't know how many people will work there.

Since the company plans a training center, it's likely that most ConocoPhillips employees on site at any given time would be trainees rather than permanent new employees.

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said when he spoke to a Conoco person Wednesday, he was told it was premature to give a size to the work force.

"We're still scoping the project, but you can do the math" to get an estimate of how many people could work there, based on the size, Clark was told.

And the math easily supports well in excess of 10,000 on the site, Clark said.

"This would dwarf any economic development deal in the history of the state."

He said 10,000 jobs there would create another 18,000 jobs for an economic impact of $1.7 billion a year.

Even if a large number of the people on the campus were coming in solely for training, that would be a boon for everything from the hotels and restaurants in the area to increased flights at Denver International Airport.

"That would really help us with getting flights to Asia," Clark said. "It would especially help us with flights to China, with its seemingly insatiable thirst for oil and renewable and alternative sources of energy."

ConocoPhillips could easily rezone the property from industrial, allowing 5 million to 5.5 million square feet of a wide range of buildings, from offices to industrial to research and development facilities, and even retail and hotels, said Paul Wood, planning director for Louisville.

That is more than triple the 1.6 million square feet in the existing 10 buildings, he said.

Frank Kelley, a broker with CB Richard Ellis, represented one developer looking at the site, and they projected eventually constructing 4.7 million square feet of buildings on the campus. That would be enough space for about 18,800 people, using a common real estate metric of 250 square feet per person.

"It's giant," Kelley said.

Byron Koste, director of the CU Real Estate Center, said ConocoPhillips wouldn't have bought such a large site if it didn't see a use for it.

"I'm sure they have a vision," Koste said.

"On the other hand, corporate America has a long tradition of buying more than they need. It's better to err on the side of buying too much, rather than down the road saying we could really use a couple of hundred more acres."

Bill Tanner, a ConocoPhillips spokesman, said Thursday it would be "speculative and premature" to comment on the number of people who ultimately will work on the campus.

"We'll be putting teams together to work out long-range plans," he said.

"We'll take a systematic approach to it, building the global learning center and technology facility. As the company continues to grow, we will find room for additional phases that's available to us. We always take a long-term view of business purchases like that."

ConocoPhillips currently has several training centers in places such as Beijing and Norway for employees spread over 40 nations.

The plan is to have one central training facility at Louisville, Tanner said.

"We are a large, integrated company with training needs across the board - from safety methods to drilling techniques," he said.

"Training courses can range from one week to six weeks."

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207

Potential impact

10,000 people working and training at ConocoPhillips' new Global Technology Center and Corporate Learning Center in Louisville are possible.

18,000 jobs could be created because of the influx of people working and training.

$1.7 billion would be the economic impact of the jobs.

• February 22, 2008

  9:45 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Diff writes:

  NOW this is nothing but HYPE -
  You have no realistic idea of what type and size of facility ConocoPhillips will build there - you are "guessing" here based on the math of how many buildings and of what size and how many people they could hold! - capacity

  10,000 is a lot!

  They may have labs and small scale manufacturing and a lot of space devoted to research and equipment that may not "house" peoplein offices it might be only 5,000 people -
  could be even less...
  Bill Tanner, a ConocoPhillips spokesman, said Thursday it would be "speculative and premature" to comment on the number of people who ultimately will work on the campus.
  BUT RMN_
  A sensational headline and big numbers based on what - guessing and to maybe make it look like more that it will be - for the sake of --public sentiment.
  I thing CP coming here is a good thing and will have a far reaching economic impact -
  But we don't need the Hype RMN!