Motorola Cancels $3B Factory

WEST CREEK, VA-Motorola Inc. has officially terminated the long-planned $3-billion semiconductor facility in Goochland County that was first announced in 1995, leaving vacant a sprawling 362-acre chunk of land at the West Creek Business Park just outside of Richmond. The scheduled 1.5-million-sf computer chip plant would have created 5,000 jobs, and was to have been the main facilitator in changing the area’s industry focus from tobacco to technology.

“Motorola’s decision not to develop the West Creek site was based upon drastic changes in the semiconductor industry and our own business model since we purchased the site in 1995,” Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector director of business communications Ken Phillips explains to GlobeSt.com. “During the past several years, it has become clear that the escalating cost of technology development and manufacturing capacity required fundamental changes in how we fund and run our semiconductor business.” The company has eliminated 34 such factories since 1997 and will have only 10 by the end of 2002.