Carlsbad Picked for New Plant : Jobs: United Solar Systems plant will employ 100. It is a unit of Canon, an industry giant.
A leading Japanese-owned manufacturer of solar energy panels plans to set up a large-scale manufacturing operation in Carlsbad, city officials said this week.
United Solar Systems Corp., a unit of Canon Inc. of Japan., is close to buying 30 acres of land in the Carlsbad Research Center near Palomar Airport Road at El Camino Real, Carlsbad Planning Director Michael Holzmiller said.
Initial plans call for a new plant of at least 100,000 square feet, employing 100 people, to open in early 1994, said Dan Pegg, president of San Diego Economic Development Corp., the local jobs-creation agency that is helping to bring the manufacturer to the region.
The unit may eventually expand its presence to 300,000 square feet and employ 300 workers, sources said. More than 90% of the employees at the new plant will be hired locally, Pegg said.
United Solar Systems operates its main manufacturing plant in Troy, Mich. There are no immediate plans to close the facility there, sources said.
Officials at Canon’s U.S. headquarters in Costa Mesa did not return telephone calls Friday for comment. Canon is an $11-billion business machines and photography giant.
The company initially was interested in Carlsbad and Poway for the new manufacturing site because of the cities’ proximity to Canon’s Orange County headquarters office and to research facilities in Southern California.
Sources said the company has recently developed new solar energy technology it will incorporate into the new manufacturing process.
The solar panels made by United Solar Systems have industrial as well as recreational uses, Pegg said, adding that the company plans on becoming the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer by the year 2000.
The San Diego Economic Development Corp. worked with the solar panel manufacturer for a year assisting it with site review, selection and acquainting it with local air quality guidelines, Pegg said.
The manufacturing jobs will be a welcome addition to the region’s job base, given the hits that the manufacturing jobs sector has taken over the last two years because of defense budget cutbacks and the recession, Peg said.
“One hundred manufacturing jobs is just exactly what San Diego needs right now,” Pegg said. “Each manufacturing job generates 2.5 related service, supply or technical jobs.”
Three of four jobs created in San Diego these days are in service and tourism which “tend to pay 30% less and which contribute 40% less in public revenue,” Pegg said. “That’s not to turn our back on tourism industry, it’s just to emphasize you have to have some balance.”
Until slowed by the recession over the past two years, Carlsbad has been one of the county’s fastest growing industrial nodes, attracting a host of new companies, particularly in the sporting goods, biomedical and telecommunications sectors, Holzmiller said.
The Carlsbad industrial zone that is centered around Palomar Airport now employs 12,000 workers, up from 7,820 workers five years ago, Holzmiller said.
The Carlsbad industrial zone was dubbed the “Golf Coast” by one sporting goods trade publication after more than half dozen golf club manufacturers located there over the past decade.
