Council votes to allow ATK expansion

By JOSHUA MOLINA — Mar. 4, 2009

In a rare moment of harmony for the sometimes acrimonious Goleta City Council, the panel voted last night to allow a little known aerospace and defense company to dramatically expand its office building in the city’s Old Town redevelopment area.

About 160 people work at Alliant Techsystems, (ATK) campus on the 600 block of Pine Avenue in Goleta. The Minnesota-based company has about 17,000 employees in 21 states and projects revenues of about $4.6 billion in 2009.

The Mars Phoenix Lander got its start out of the Goleta building, and in a partnership with NASA, the company currently is developing solar array technology prototypes, which essentially connect solar cells, out of the Goleta building.

Expanding the building, company officials said last night, is crucial for them to complete their contract obligations.

“People don’t really know what a gem we have in Old Town,” said Goleta Mayor Roger Aceves. “I just hope the next shipment that they sent up in space has our city logo on it.”

As the city of Goleta, which incorporated in 2002, continues to establish its political identity amid competing community interests, the ATK project comes as a welcome bright spot for the city.

With its high-paying jobs and well-educated engineering employees, the company serves as a good fit for Goleta as it looks to redevelop Old Town and recruit and retain high-end employers.

Goleta council members also seem emotionally attached to the idea that their little city could also be home to such a globally influential and pivotal company.

“This truly is a unique opportunity for Goleta,” said councilman Ed Easton. “Not enough people know the story of this building.”

ATK intends to add about 25,000 square feet to its existing 60,000 square foot building. The company plans to increase the number of parking spaces from 165 to 226, and dedicate a portion of Ekwill Street to the city, which allow Goleta to extend it.

About the only point of contention during the meeting came over the amount of money for affordable housing. Goleta requires new non-residential developers to either build affordable housing or pay the city “in lieu fees” to offset the impact on the community.

An initial city determination concluded that the developer should pay the city $170,000, a number derived the number of additional square footage added to the existing building. The aerospace company disputed the amount, however, and was able to convince the staff and the council that they should only pay about $81,000 of in-lieu fees.

Since the city does not have an ordinance mandating private developers to pay the fees, the amount for individual projects has largely been determined on a case-by-case basis.

In this case, ATK said that although the expansion would result in hiring new employees, most of those employees were earn higher salaries, and many of the existing employees already live in the community, so the need for affordable housing fees was not as great.

“These are high-tech, high-paying jobs,” said Peter Brown, an attorney with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, representing ATK’s partner on the project, The Towbes Group.

Michael Towbes praised the company.

“We’re very excited to be sponsoring this project,” he told the Goleta City Council. “This project is very important.”

Councilman Eric Onnen said that in these difficult financial times, when companies are shedding employees at alarming rates, Goleta should embrace a company that is thriving in our own back yard.

He also noted that the company is already paying several hundred thousand dollars in fees so Goleta should welcome before they take their business elsewhere.

“We do run into the danger of chasing these jobs out of the community,” he said.

He was thrilled with the project.

“I am getting very excited by the minute,” he said. “To have something positive occurring, to have the ability to gain jobs, it is very exciting.”

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ATK Employment : 3/4/2009

As an employee here at ATK I want to say that this company is very high-end compaired to other companies I have worked for; I am so proud to live and work in a beautiful Town (Goleta), with the apartment rentals, shopping and entertainment near by, it makes my job much easier to focus on the important projects at hand when I am close to work. ATK is a family orientated business that sets it's values for the customer, we focus on doing it right the first time with 100% on-tiime delivery goals, which are still current. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to live in this wonderful town and approving the extension of our building.

Mike

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ATK & Community Involvement : 3/4/2009

ATK has been a valuable resource for our local schools, as well. ATK and their employees regularly contribute time and resources to our Partners in Education Technology Committee and SBCEO's Technology Showcase. They are working to arrange field trips to their site, they participate in Career Days, and they have provided video footage of their space projects to show in science, engineering, and math courses. Bringing the exciting real world of development really helps these students to connect what they are learning in the classroom to their future careers. Thanks to ATK and their employees (especially Mike, Earl, and Jim) for their continued and invaluable involvement with local Goleta schools!

Michelle

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