AGAIN: Another Major Employer Backs Out of Deal Announced by Hickenlooper

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Less than two years after local headlines blared “Hickenlooper makes it official,” GE announced that it will not open a $300 million plant that was scheduled to employ 355 people.  This announcement is a major economic loss for the state, as the governor called the project “one of the biggest deals that will hit the state in a long time.”  From Denver Post article:

“We have decided that it is not in the best interest of GE, our customers or the Denver community to move forward with the build-out of this facility,”  said Lindsay Thiele, a GE spokeswoman.

This let-down comes just days after Hickenlooper’s latest economic development bust, when the Hallmark Channel announced that it would be moving major production of a Western mini-series from Colorado to Canada, because of inadequate tax incentives and environmental concerns around building a set from the ground up.  The state offered Hallmark $2.7 million in incentives to film part of that series in Colorado.  It is unclear how much of that money will actually make it into the cable channel’s hands.

For several years the solar panel industry has faced challenges of steep price competition and overcapacity, which have worked in tandem to driven margins down and force a wave of consolidations and bankruptcies in the industry.

Instead of GE building the panels itself, the company decided to give its IP, acquired by the 2009 acquisition of PrimeStar Solar, to leading US solar panel manufacturer First Solar in exchange for $82 million in First Solar stock.  As part of this deal, First Solar factories in upstate New York will produce the panels, and the Arvada lab where much of this technology was developed will close, costing an additional 50 “green jobs” in Colorado.

As it turns out, a Hickenlooper press conference might just be the kiss of death for businesses considering relocating to Colorado.

16 thoughts on “AGAIN: Another Major Employer Backs Out of Deal Announced by Hickenlooper”

  2. Like not making them pay taxes, why should they not pay taxes I do, you do. Are you saying it is ok for corporations to not pay taxes but we have to? It is time to stop kissing big business ass and start kicking it. First they off shore most of the manufacturing so the can use cheap child labor or avoid pollution laws then if we don't give them a tax break they won't make a plant in our state. Maybe they did not want to make the plant here because we have had so many mass shootings in the last 5 years did you think of that.

  3. Check out the new G.E. Solar Panel plant in Aurora CO. that is almost done and now will not open, not just an East Coast company. You have to make an environment that is favorable to companies to move to Colorado to produce jobs and products. Yes it is his fault!!

  4. I am not sure what that has to do with Hickenlooper. Are they trying to say it's his fault that he got played by GE. GE never intended to move that production to Colorado. GE is strictly an east coast company and is mostly controlled by their union workers. Every time GE announces they are going to do a project in a non-union right to work state. Their shipbuilding or one of their other unions threatens a strike if they do.

  5. A State shouldn't buy capitalism to come into a State. It just removes the obstacles to doing so. No State should pay for a company to come here. The same tax incentives that Hick tried to give Hallmark is the same incentives it should give all Coloradans. Any time a State bribes to get capitalism the only thing it succeeds in getting is socialism over capitalism. One of the main problems with the Democratic Party is that it mixes too much socialism into capitalism and causes capitalism to become ineffective.

  6. Pingback: Colorado Peak Politics – AGAIN: Another Major Employer Backs Out of Deal Announced by Hickenlooper | Tom Tancredo for Governor

  7. Don't blame businesses?! Corporations are the ones who essentially run the government on so many levels. What do you think the purpose of a lobbyist is? They incite a game of chess among congress members and the game eventually turns anyone genuine into a fraud!

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