State leaders not rushing to finalize AMD deal
Getting a binding agreement is not keyed to being done before Pataki
leaves office at end of year
By LARRY RULISON, Business writer
First published: Saturday, October 21, 2006
ALBANY -- New York political leaders do not appear to be in a rush
to get a binding agreement with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. done
before Gov. George Pataki leaves office at the end of the year.
Back in June, Pataki unveiled a blockbuster deal in which AMD agreed
to build a $3.2 billion computer-chip fabrication plant in Saratoga
County in exchange for $1.2 billion in financial incentives. Ground
is expected to be broken within three years, and the plant could
be up and running by 2012.
That deal is nonbinding, but both AMD and state leaders say they
have been working on a binding agreement that will solidify the project.
AMD, the No. 2 computer-chip manufacturer behind Intel Corp., is
expected to buy 200 acres at the Luther Forest Technology Campus
to build a state-of-the-art, 1.2 million-square-foot "chip fab" that
would employ 1,205 people.
Republican Pataki is not running for re-election. New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, is the heavy favorite to become
the next governor.
However, no one was saying this week that a deal with AMD has to
be completed before a possible Spitzer administration takes over
in January.
"We continue to work with AMD to finalize details of the project
consistent with the framework that was articulated when the project
was announced," Pataki spokeswoman Lynn Krogh said in a statement. "This
is a complicated and important project that is moving forward along
its own timeline, not a political one."
Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said the Democrat has been
in favor of the AMD deal, although she declined to discuss any timetable
for the negotiations and how they might be impacted by the election.
"As a concept, he's been supportive of it in the past," she
said.
AMD is continuing to negotiate with the state, company spokesman
Jon Carvill said Thursday, but he declined to offer additional details.
Since the original agreement is nonbinding, it's possible that either
side could demand changes to the size of the project or the incentive
plan. But Kris Thompson, a spokesman for state Senate Majority Leader
Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, said the senator, one of the architects
of the AMD deal, was not expecting any major changes when a final
deal is reached.
"I think, for the most part, it's going to remain as originally
crafted," he said.
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