Danish firm Vestas Wind Systems is considering a site in Brighton for a major expansion of its Colorado wind-turbine-blade manufacturing.
The Brighton City Council this week approved a resolution to negotiate the sale of a 112-acre, city-owned parcel to Vestas.
Vestas already operates a large blade-manufacturing plant in Windsor, 47 miles north of Brighton. That facility initially was to employ 400 workers, but even before it opened in March, Vestas said the workforce would grow to 650 because of strong demand for wind turbines.
Vestas has told Brighton officials that a new plant, if built in Brighton, also could employ 650.
But economic-development officials said the transaction isn’t final.
“This is not yet a deal,” said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. “It’s part of the process a company goes through when they want to acquire raw land. This is a step in the right direction but it’s by no means a done deal.”
Vestas also reportedly is negotiating with the Regional Transportation District to buy a 65-acre parcel next to the city of Brighton land.
The wind-energy firm announced earlier this year that it will build a $250 million factory at an undisclosed Colorado location to build steel towers for wind turbines.
The facility will employ about 400.
Vestas’ existing plant in Windsor’s Great Western Industrial Park is on pace to turn out 1,800 blades a year for new wind farms in Colorado and other states.
The industrial park, owned by Denver-based Broe Group, had negotiated with Vestas to locate the proposed new blade plant near the existing Windsor facility but withdrew from talks when Vestas said it would not use nearby rail lines owned by Broe to transport the blades, said Alex Yeros, managing director of Broe Group.
Yeros said Broe executives were concerned about the negative impact on the park of Vestas’ plan to use huge trucks to move the blades out of the plant en route to customers.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
