Archive for October, 2009

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is holding additional public scoping meetings to seek input and discuss with the public a proposed study expansion area for the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project.

Three open-house public scoping meetings along the expanded study area will be held in the following New Mexico communities. All meetings will be from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

Las Cruces, October 26, 2009 – Court Youth Center, 402 West Court

Alamogordo, October 27, 2009 -First National Bank, 414 Tenth Street

Chaparral, October 28, 2009 -Chaparral High School, 800 County Line Drive

The project is a proposed 460 mile high capacity 500 kilovolt (kV) transmission line (or two parallel lines) across New Mexico and Arizona. The project proponent, SunZia Transmission LLC, is proposing to transport electricity generated by power generation resources, including primarily renewable resources, to western power markets and load centers. The BLM is the lead Federal agency which will oversee the preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will identify environmental impacts and evaluate alternatives for the project.

Numerous comments during the initial public scoping meetings included requests to consider alternative routes. Suggested transmission line corridors for consideration in New Mexico are potential routes south of the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in Dona Ana County and along the eastern boundary of the WSMR in Otero and Lincoln counties. These corridors in the New Mexico area could provide alternative routes between the Midpoint Substation site near Deming, and the proposed SunZia-East Substation termination site in Lincoln County

A map of the proposed expansion area and more information regarding the project are available on BLM-SunZia Transmission Line Project website.

Yesterday, we held our October Business on the Border Luncheon where Wayne Savage and Pat Hynes presented on the upcoming Leonard R. Sugerman Public Forum and International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) events which will be taking place October 20th to the 22nd at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.  MVEDA will be sponsoring the opening reception for all registered attendees of ISPCS. As economic developers we work very hard and spend time and resources to get in front of industry decision makers and encourage business attraction to our region.  The fact that ISPCS is taking place in our own back yard with industry leaders attending creates a very powerful marketing tool for MVEDA and the region as a whole.

To recap lead generation activity over the past month, MVEDA generated fifteen new leads compared with ten the last month, thereby showing a very healthy pipeline of projects and interest.   Although alternative energy companies continue to make up over 1/3 of all our leads in the past two months, the overall percentage has dropped slightly and we have seen an increase in the percentage of lead generation within the aerospace and food processing sectors.  We currently have 25 new leads in the pipeline for this fiscal year totaling 2,512 potential jobs and over 1 million square feet of potential real estate needs.

As announced last week, Frontier Airlines stated that they would be closing their Las Cruces reservation center towards the end of this year.  MVEDA has already begun to market the facility as a plug-n-play call center to the site selector community and have currently received two inquiries.

In September, MVEDA attended the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC) conference in Minneapolis.  This is the premier event for site consultants.  MVEDA co-hosted a site consultant dinner put on by the New Mexico Partnership which received strong attendance.

For the month of October, MVEDA has a very busy marketing and travel schedule consisting of:

• Oct. 12-16: Prospect mission to Washington D.C. to meet primarily with defense related firms and site consultants
• Oct. 20-22: Leonard R. Sugerman Public Forum and ISPCS
• Oct. 26-29: Prospect mission in Los Angeles and attendance at the Solar Power International Show.

Finally, I am happy to say that on September 22, 2009, the County Commission voted unanimously on the passage of the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) in Dona Ana County.

The Bi-National Sustainability Laboratory together with its principal partners and sponsoring organizations will hold a one day conference entitled: “A New Bi-National Energy Future: Biofuels and Solar Policy Summit.” High level officials, experts and individuals, representing all levels of government, industry and academic/research communities from Mexico and the US will be invited to consider critical issues relevant to creating a new bi-national energy future between US/Mexico, including production, storage, transmission, and cross-border collaborations.

On October 27^th, ISTEC (Ibero American Science & Technology Education Consortium) & MANCEF (Micro and Nanotechnology Commercialization Education Foundation) will also be holding a “Science & Technology Business Matchmaking session” This event is designed to facilitate meetings between technology-based companies, academic organizations, research centers and government agencies.

This international event offers participants the possibility to meet with business and academic contacts that come from different countries in Ibero-America with the purpose of generating relationships and business in the short, medium and long term. A difference from other business round tables and matchmaking sessions, the Science & Technology Business Matchmaking facilitates not only business-to-business interactions, but also business-to-academia connections and government-to-government relations promoting commercial and economic exchanges, as well as collaborative alliances.

This event offers an excellent opportunity to identify suppliers, potential clients and partners, introduce new products, establish alliances, and network with international peers in the technology sector expanding current market and business opportunities.

For more information please contact Scott Bryant at info@mancef.org.