Danish wind-turbine company Vestas Wind Systems said Tuesday it will build a $60 million manufacturing plant in western Weld County.
The 180,000-square-foot facility at the Great Western Industrial Park in Windsor, between Greeley and Fort Collins, will employ 420 workers. Most will be hired locally.
Wages will range from $30,000 a year for production workers to more than $60,000 for managers.
“This is going to be huge for this area,” said Larry Burkhardt, president and chief executive of Upstate Colorado Economic Development, a business group for Weld County.
The plant will build 131-foot blades for Vestas wind turbines. At full production, the plant will have the capacity to produce 1,200 blades per year.
Windsor has offered Vestas incentives of $800,000 in deferred development fees and tax breaks, and Weld County offered about $300,000 more in tax breaks, according to interim town manager Kelly Arnold. Vestas also will receive job-training money from Colorado.
The Vestas plant announcement “is another sign that Colorado is the Energizer Bunny of renewable energy. We just keep going and going,” U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo, said.
“We are quickly making a name for ourselves as a state that’s open for business in what will be one of the most important industries in the 21st century,” Gov. Bill Ritter said.
Construction is scheduled to start this spring, with blade production beginning early next year.
Burkhardt said initial hires at the plant will be sent to Denmark for several months of training. Upon their return, they’ll supervise other production workers.
Vestas cited the town’s access to rail services and a skilled workforce as reasons for choosing Windsor.
The company has installed more than 31,500 wind turbines in more than 60 countries and employs about 12,000 people worldwide.
The Windsor plant will go near the Owens-Illinois Inc. plant that feeds more than 1 billion bottles a year to brewer Anheuser-Busch.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
