Amid debate over whether the state should have done more to lure Micron Technology Inc.'s $1.3 billion expansion, the computer chipmaker is indicating it still plans to add up to 3,500 jobs in the Boise area over the next seven years.
As the company tries to decide among three non-Idaho sites for its new expansion and the 3,500 jobs that go with it, officials have supplied city and county officials with a map outlining its view of the future in Boise.Corporate officials are not discussing how many people would be hired or even when further Boise expansion might occur. But the map shows two new manufacturing plants adjacent to the existing facility and roads being moved to make even more room.
Micron executives call the map a planning document to aid the highway district and city.
"We had to show the potential for growth in the future for their planning purposes," spokeswoman Julie Nash said.
The company has advised city planners that the designated plants would be 144,000 square feet and 128,000 square feet in size, and two more could be built as well.
Highway officials and industry analysts believe the document indicates as many as 3,500 new workers by 2002 and up to another 3,000 on top of that later. That would bring Micron employment in Boise to as many as 13,700.
"I would not be surprised that Micron has said to the state that they have some intent of eventually building a (factory) there whenever their economics permit it," analyst Jim Handy of Data- quest Inc. in San Jose, Calif., said.
City Planning Director Wayne Gibbs said the two fabrication plants are probably years away.