LOUISVILLE, Colo.—ConocoPhillips wants its new Colorado campus to be able to handle at least 7,000 workers within the next 20 years, which could put it on track to become one of the five largest employers in the Denver area.
The oil giant plans to transform the site in Louisville, just northwest of Denver, into its global technology center and training facility. The bulk of the research done there will be in renewable energy.
“That’s what we need as part of the national energy policy,” ConocoPhillips real estate manager Mary Manning said Wednesday at a luncheon at the Boulder Country Club. “We want to be a leader in that. Petro research will stay where it is.”
Manning said ConocoPhillips will ask Louisville for permission to accommodate at least 7,000 workers, but the company may not actually end up with that many.
Company spokeswoman Tracy Harlow said ConocoPhillips already has that many employees combined at its two U.S. locations—3,000 in Bartlesville, Okla. and 4,000 in Houston.
A core group of workers will come from the Houston headquarters but most of the Louisville employees, including scientists, researchers and a managers, will be hired locally.
A work force of 7,000 would mean a payroll of more than $400 million, which would make the company the fourth largest employer in the metro area, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
Manning expects the first phase of work on the campus to be completed in 2011, a year earlier than previously announced.
The campus had belonged to StorageTek, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2005. Sun sold the 432-acre property to ConocoPhillips for $58.5 million.
