FORT COLLINS, Colo.—The Fort Collins City Council will review plans by Hewlett-Packard Co. to expand its engineering campus in the city with a $64.4 million investment that would also bring more than 100 high-paying jobs.
The City Council will discuss the company’s proposal Tuesday and will consider whether to give HP $1.6 million in tax breaks for the project.
“That’s all money that would not exist if not for this activity,” Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson said.
He said that although the city may not be able to create jobs directly, officials can “create an environment where businesses and entrepreneurs will succeed.”
If approved, the expansion would add a 40,000-square-foot engineering lab to Hewlett-Packard’s Fort Collins campus on Harmony Road.
“The fact that they’re making an investment of that magnitude is great for the city,” said David May, the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce president. “It should cement HP in Fort Collins for a long time.”
HP has long had a presence in northern Colorado, expanding into Loveland 1959. It later opened a campus in Fort Collins in the late 1970s and Greeley in 1982. The Greeley plant closed in 2002 and most of the employees transferred to Fort Collins.
The new proposed expansion would mean the company would have 100 additional employees at its campus. About half of those would be transferred from other HP locations, and the rest could be hired locally. The jobs pay an average of $90,000 a year. That’s more than double the average salary in the county.
HP does not reveal how many workers they have at its various locations but economic development agencies estimate the company employs 3,000 people in Fort Collins.
Of the $64.4 million HP would invest, $34.4 million would be for new construction and $30 million for equipment.
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Information from: Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald,
