Mark Lundstrom, Purdue’s chief semiconductor officer, answers zoning concerns for a $3.87B facility — including from colleagues — why SK hynix picked WL over LEAP and a case for a silicon heartland
Thanks for your continued efforts to keep our community up to speed on on the multiple aspects of this evolving project/development.
I have the luxury of taking in the info you offer to determine my position, and I have experienced this situation before.
I've lived in the suburban enclaves of NYC, the San Fernando Valley of L.A., and Boston, and have seen the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude in all three places.
I'm quite cynical with the intent of the "I'm here first, keep it as is" nimbys, wanting to protect themselves from their self-created possible outcomes of development.
Therefore, I want to congratulate you on your evenhanded, unbiased reporting on this important topic to own town.
It appears that Vijay and Tillmann live in the neighborhoods adjacent to Site A/B, but Mark does not. This speaks clearly to their motivations. Mark cares about the economic growth of West Lafayette; his colleagues care about the health and safety of their community.
More valuable than profit is a human life. I'm inclined to listen to the experts who reside in the neighboring area, rather than someone who won't be living next to the fab 24/7.
Being a NIMBY is different than being concerned about a fire in a chip fab which requires neighboring areas to be evacuated. There is a serious health concern and I don't think that this concern can be mitigated unless the fab is moved to a less populated area. There is more space near the Saab factory and Purdue Airport - the fab can be built there.
It's not like fabs or packaging facilities are always built miles away from housing, there's certainly a reasonable setback but if you look at other fabs or the current Hynix site in Korea on Google Maps, what they are proposing at site B doesn't seem to be especially close to housing. And moving Hynix out of the research park isn't even up for a vote, they're going to build on site A if site B isn't rezoned. Site A gives them LESS separation from neighborhoods, how is that better if the concern is residential separation?
And how would something else there in the research park (either in the site A I3 space or the site B OR space) be better in the event of a fire? Something like a chemical plant, a Walmart, a warehouse, etc., a serious fire at any of those would potentially mean that downwind neighborhoods could be told to evacuate, that's the nature of a major fire if the conditions are right, not something specific to Hynix. You certainly wouldn't want to breathe in smoke from any of those, or a major multi-house or apartment fire for that matter!
I certainly do think it would be good to have more communication from Hynix on what chemicals and processes they'll be using so the community can understand more about specifics though!
I think that the opposition is not so much to this particular proposed industry, but more that the community is really just appreciating now that the land is / has been zoned for heavy industry.
Will the land ever "unzoned" for heavy industry? If not, then this might be the cleanest plant that occupies the space.
There are many benefits - but good manufacturing jobs is the main one. We need more of those to diversify our local economy, particularly as the future of universities and their associated economies seems to be very precarious. If Purdue is forced to contract severely, what will support this town? And additionally, we see many people pushed rightward due to the lack of these jobs, and now look where we are. I really do think this could be a win-win.
I find Dr. Lundstrom's mention of comparison communities to be a compelling argument. What do we expect to be different about this plant relative to those, which seem to be operating with no problems? If we cannot articulate particular, specific concerns and figure out whether they can/cannot be mitigated, then it really is just NIMBYism.
Obviously, any initiative to plop a factory within city limits in 2025 is going to be a barn burner.
There was a Whirlpool plant there for many years, right down the street from the Great Lakes chemical plant. When I was a kid, that whole area was a swamp (literally) and many adults in my orbit thought building neighborhoods on a bog, next to a couple of factories and behind an industrial park no less, was ridiculous. The community's biggest concern with that whole area was water abatement, and a lot of time and money was spent on protecting UFarm and surrounding developments from the natural effects of being built on a bog. Despite PRF simultaneously developing those neighborhoods alongside that industrial zone, I don't recall environmental community concerns until now.
Fast forward twenty five years and what used to be the outskirts of town are no longer. There are multiple factories within the city limits of L/WL. Meanwhile, Indiana ranks consistently among the worst for the environment and continues to treat its waterways like a series of dumpsters - which makes it attractive to industrial and manufacturing developments.
Which is partly why the eleventh hour protests seem odd. This site has been under development for as long as the neighborhoods have. Indiana sucks for the environment every day. Indiana sucks for women every day. Indiana is one of the worst ranked states for pollution today, without the factory. Indiana is one of the worst ranked states for maternal health and mortality today, without the factory. Are the environmental arguments earnest or merely meant to slow the project? How much does either matter?
"A 2017 study of over 2,200 female semiconductor workers across roughly 4,000 pregnancies found the risk for spontaneous abortion in female semiconductor workers who became pregnant after 2009 was not significantly higher for fabrication and packaging process workers than for clerical workers."
In the paper, it states:
"However, when we stratified by time period, the odds ratio for spontaneous abortion was significantly higher for packaging process workers who became pregnant prior to 2008 when compared with clerical workers (odds ratio: 2.21; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–4.81).
[...]
When examining the pregnancies of female semiconductor workers that occurred prior to 2008, packaging process workers showed a significantly higher risk for spontaneous abortions than did clerical workers. The two semiconductor production periods in our study (prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) had different automated processes, chemical exposure levels, and working environments. Thus, the conditions prior to 2008 may have increased the risk for spontaneous abortions in packaging process workers in the semiconductor industry."
In short, processes matter and the risks are real. The Public needs to know more of the specific details for both the SK Hynix facility and the 143 suppliers as well.
Hello Zachary! You know I love a good data trail, so I noticed that this "was administered to current female workers of two semiconductor manufacturing plants in Korea." While I do personally believe this type of work "would lead to higher risk for spontaneous abortions than did clerical workers", siloing the data collection to that specific of a population will always make findings easily arguable.
So, if we say no to this plant, the plant is not going away. These problems go somewhere else. We could insist that if SK Hynix wants to put their plant here, which they obviously do (I mean they already built the roads to it), they get rid of that problem. Whatever that looks like.
Twenty-five years ago, U.S. tech companies pledged to stop using chemicals that caused miscarriages and birth defects. They failed to ensure that their Asian suppliers did the same.
--
And I agree. Not here means somewhere else.
As far as safety concerns, it's difficult when all assurances have been couched in current EPA and IDEM regulations (which can change at political will) and hypothetical plans created by SK Hynix which have not been produced and are non-binding.
West Lafayette was not planned to include so much industry. Sure Site A was rezoned to I3 back in 1992, but that doesn't mean it was the right decision.
Great write up and interview! Yeah, there seems to be a lot of misinfo around the SK Hynix plant and chip fab in general. Is worth pointing out that Purdue has the Birck Nanotechnology Center and the Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory (which is R&D and not industrial, but definitely still a "fab" and built to industrial spec) literally right behind the Aspire dorm. Chip fab in Indiana is also not entirely new, Kokomo had a chip fab for decades, into the late 2010s (e.g. https://www.kokomotribune.com/news/local_news/gmch-kokomo-fab-iii-looking-to-new-business-plan-to-keep-itself-going/article_335054de-97f5-5da6-8a92-6ed7a8cfde9d.html, and https://www.gminsidenews.com/threads/chip-shortage-whatever-happened-to-gm-kokomo.304137/). A number of the staff guys at Birck worked there! Advanced packaging/heterogenous integration like SK Hynix is doing, I don't know as much as I'd like about what chemical and material processes that involves, but based on other fabs, and the fact that the current SK Hynix advanced packaging plant is in the middle of an actual city, I'd have to think a reasonable setback (maybe like a football field?) would be fine for residential areas around it.
If it is so cool, build it next to the airport. Within sight of Evonik. Right on 231, no problem getting semis in or out. No problem getting city water/sewage there. (Hell, replace the airport. That is a money pit.) Why commit all remaining land adjacent to the most populous residential section of the city?! You know what is cooler than a "fab"? Shelter!
Yeah I'm not sure why that site at the airport (especially where the proposed Skywater plant was going to go and then didn't) wasn't desirable for them, I wish either them or PRF would have addressed that directly at the last meeting. They might need more space for supplier support? But regardless, I know that's a question at the forefront of a lot of people's minds.
That being said, I don't live near the Site A or B (though my kids are at a daycare close by), but it does seem like from an overall fit that site B gives them better isolation from residential areas to the north and west of Site A. I definitely get the concern from folks close about like, traffic, nosie, etc., just from having something there at all instead of corn fields. But at the same time, the whole point of a research park is to have something there and NOT be just cornfields.
I actually don't think it's a false choice for SK Hynix or the neighborhoods around site A, if the rezone goes through they get a more coherent site layout and get more residential separation. But yeah if it doesn't go through, that doesn't mean SK Hynix won't build in the research park or that they won't have supplier support offices on site B, it just puts the Hynix facility closer to residential areas (important to point out: less affluent neighborhoods that don't have the clout of the neighborhoods bordering site B, and who aren't in city limits so don't even have representation) than they'd prefer to be.
I get that semiconductor nerds and SK Hynix are jazzed, but I SUPER do not care. Yeah, my house would be worth more, but whatever. We are focusing on negatives -- like we might have environmental issues and traffic will suck for sure -- but NOTHING POSITIVE that we as a community would miss out on if this did not happen. Purdue will not be Stanford and we definitely do not want to be Palo Alto. Let SK Hynix go to freaking Phoenix! We should wish them well, then fight to get that site A zoning changed to allow construction of housing that we ALREADY desperately need.
The positives are pretty clear. Driving additional work and industry to a city that has very little (WL) and the accompanying higher tax rate industry pays compared to residential. Not to mention the large number of jobs this one factory alone is bringing in, 1000ish, is great. Add in all the sub suppliers and that a huge boon for our entire county.
We do not need it THERE. The transportation infrastructure cannot accomodate ANY of it: people, suppliers, logistics. No amount of tax revenue will build more land. How is bringing in thousands of people without a plan to house them a good idea? This is the same negative externality issue as Purdue dumping its uncontrolled growth on WL. Last I checked, Purdue was a big employer. If SK Hynix wants to be near Purdue, anywhere in the county should be acceptable to both, and WL should get to choose its fate.
The housing problems brought by Purdue and the housing issues brought by businesses are completely different. Mainly because of the type of housing they are looking at and how quickly the housing can be built. Purdue ramped up super quick and apartment buildings can’t be built super quick.
But it will be years before this plant is fully operational, including the subtier suppliers, giving plenty of time for the housing market to build new homes. Like the new addition being proposed directly north of the plant.
One of many questions still unanswered is why is the already industrial zoned site near the airport where Skywater Technology was supposed to be but released their option for not being used for SK Hynix? That site already has the infrastructure and is next to a highway and doesn’t take away needed residential zoned land. It was only several months ago that there was a push for Accessory Dwelling Units because of lack of housing within city limits.
The ADU was primarily aimed at near campus for students. The workers at these plants will be non-student adults, many with families looking at owning a home or a nicer/bigger apartment then a typical college student. It’s different markets and not really comparable.
Remember the city doesn’t dictate where specific factories, businesses, etc go. The factory can go in a location that is zoned I3. They’ve made it clear if they can’t be in Site B they will just remain in Site A, which is closer to housing. Site B seems to be the better location for the company, the city, and the residents.
Where would you house these young families? My point is that it makes more sense to build houses on Yeager and have employees commute to a factory on 231, not the other way around.
The difference is commuting by car. A thousand more commuters is a non starter for Purdue. Near campus people are NIMBY because the only choice is removing existing buildings. Arbor Chase folks are talking about which greenfield construction site makes the most sense.
But that doesn’t answer the question about why the nearer to campus airport site is not being used for this company. The highway is there which is better for all concerned. The Skywater Technology company was supposed to have a larger facility than SK Hynix.
My economic interest is pure Hell Yes IMBY. If SK Hynix eats north WL, it is a jackpot for me and other homeowners nearby. SK Hynix are the best possible occupants of an I3 zone, so we will have dodged a bullet there. When WL is reserved for multimillionaires, we might even get a Trader Joes! We will not have the nuisance of children in our parks and schools or renters in our neighborhood. I am all for it, except for the obvious: that is a dumb-ass place for a factory. This is the city planning equivalent of the dog who catches the car. Big $$ do nothing to help the city address persistent problems with housing availability and affordability. But I'm in, pull up the rope, screw the plebes.
You do not stay ahead by sitting still. That is a general rule of life. West Lafayette = Purdue University. This is not the Purdue that was here when I moved here in 1988. The spot this plant is being built on used to be a big gravel pit where I would hang out at night in high school. Purdue is a business now, and with federal funds being cut the way they are, we have to do things like this to be Purdue. It is about money, but not money going into pockets today.
Ha! If I would have seen this comment, I wouldn't have responded to you above. Geesh. You are talking about my town I think, I don't even know if I should be insulted.
Has anyone brought up that there used to be a Whirlpool packaging plant across the street forever? I know it was there cause I worked it for about a week when I was 19. I think there were other similar businesses there also. The more I read about this project, the more I am swinging back in favor of it. But the planning that went into putting our crown jewel community center across from our desired crown jewel production plant is questionable.
Dave,
Thanks for your continued efforts to keep our community up to speed on on the multiple aspects of this evolving project/development.
I have the luxury of taking in the info you offer to determine my position, and I have experienced this situation before.
I've lived in the suburban enclaves of NYC, the San Fernando Valley of L.A., and Boston, and have seen the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude in all three places.
I'm quite cynical with the intent of the "I'm here first, keep it as is" nimbys, wanting to protect themselves from their self-created possible outcomes of development.
Therefore, I want to congratulate you on your evenhanded, unbiased reporting on this important topic to own town.
Keep it up!!!
C.
It appears that Vijay and Tillmann live in the neighborhoods adjacent to Site A/B, but Mark does not. This speaks clearly to their motivations. Mark cares about the economic growth of West Lafayette; his colleagues care about the health and safety of their community.
More valuable than profit is a human life. I'm inclined to listen to the experts who reside in the neighboring area, rather than someone who won't be living next to the fab 24/7.
Being a NIMBY is different than being concerned about a fire in a chip fab which requires neighboring areas to be evacuated. There is a serious health concern and I don't think that this concern can be mitigated unless the fab is moved to a less populated area. There is more space near the Saab factory and Purdue Airport - the fab can be built there.
It's not like fabs or packaging facilities are always built miles away from housing, there's certainly a reasonable setback but if you look at other fabs or the current Hynix site in Korea on Google Maps, what they are proposing at site B doesn't seem to be especially close to housing. And moving Hynix out of the research park isn't even up for a vote, they're going to build on site A if site B isn't rezoned. Site A gives them LESS separation from neighborhoods, how is that better if the concern is residential separation?
And how would something else there in the research park (either in the site A I3 space or the site B OR space) be better in the event of a fire? Something like a chemical plant, a Walmart, a warehouse, etc., a serious fire at any of those would potentially mean that downwind neighborhoods could be told to evacuate, that's the nature of a major fire if the conditions are right, not something specific to Hynix. You certainly wouldn't want to breathe in smoke from any of those, or a major multi-house or apartment fire for that matter!
I certainly do think it would be good to have more communication from Hynix on what chemicals and processes they'll be using so the community can understand more about specifics though!
I think that the opposition is not so much to this particular proposed industry, but more that the community is really just appreciating now that the land is / has been zoned for heavy industry.
Will the land ever "unzoned" for heavy industry? If not, then this might be the cleanest plant that occupies the space.
There are many benefits - but good manufacturing jobs is the main one. We need more of those to diversify our local economy, particularly as the future of universities and their associated economies seems to be very precarious. If Purdue is forced to contract severely, what will support this town? And additionally, we see many people pushed rightward due to the lack of these jobs, and now look where we are. I really do think this could be a win-win.
I find Dr. Lundstrom's mention of comparison communities to be a compelling argument. What do we expect to be different about this plant relative to those, which seem to be operating with no problems? If we cannot articulate particular, specific concerns and figure out whether they can/cannot be mitigated, then it really is just NIMBYism.
Obviously, any initiative to plop a factory within city limits in 2025 is going to be a barn burner.
There was a Whirlpool plant there for many years, right down the street from the Great Lakes chemical plant. When I was a kid, that whole area was a swamp (literally) and many adults in my orbit thought building neighborhoods on a bog, next to a couple of factories and behind an industrial park no less, was ridiculous. The community's biggest concern with that whole area was water abatement, and a lot of time and money was spent on protecting UFarm and surrounding developments from the natural effects of being built on a bog. Despite PRF simultaneously developing those neighborhoods alongside that industrial zone, I don't recall environmental community concerns until now.
Fast forward twenty five years and what used to be the outskirts of town are no longer. There are multiple factories within the city limits of L/WL. Meanwhile, Indiana ranks consistently among the worst for the environment and continues to treat its waterways like a series of dumpsters - which makes it attractive to industrial and manufacturing developments.
Which is partly why the eleventh hour protests seem odd. This site has been under development for as long as the neighborhoods have. Indiana sucks for the environment every day. Indiana sucks for women every day. Indiana is one of the worst ranked states for pollution today, without the factory. Indiana is one of the worst ranked states for maternal health and mortality today, without the factory. Are the environmental arguments earnest or merely meant to slow the project? How much does either matter?
Thanks, Dave. This interview with Mark helps capture the energy behind the push from Purdue, PRF, SK Hynix, and the City.
A quick aside:
Looking at some of the information in the datasheet that was linked, one has to make sure to dig deeper into the source data: https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SIA_Environment-Health-Safety-Practices_Fact-Sheet-12-9-24.pdf
"A 2017 study of over 2,200 female semiconductor workers across roughly 4,000 pregnancies found the risk for spontaneous abortion in female semiconductor workers who became pregnant after 2009 was not significantly higher for fabrication and packaging process workers than for clerical workers."
In the paper, it states:
"However, when we stratified by time period, the odds ratio for spontaneous abortion was significantly higher for packaging process workers who became pregnant prior to 2008 when compared with clerical workers (odds ratio: 2.21; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–4.81).
[...]
When examining the pregnancies of female semiconductor workers that occurred prior to 2008, packaging process workers showed a significantly higher risk for spontaneous abortions than did clerical workers. The two semiconductor production periods in our study (prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) had different automated processes, chemical exposure levels, and working environments. Thus, the conditions prior to 2008 may have increased the risk for spontaneous abortions in packaging process workers in the semiconductor industry."
In short, processes matter and the risks are real. The Public needs to know more of the specific details for both the SK Hynix facility and the 143 suppliers as well.
Does anyone have these available?
Hello Zachary! You know I love a good data trail, so I noticed that this "was administered to current female workers of two semiconductor manufacturing plants in Korea." While I do personally believe this type of work "would lead to higher risk for spontaneous abortions than did clerical workers", siloing the data collection to that specific of a population will always make findings easily arguable.
So, if we say no to this plant, the plant is not going away. These problems go somewhere else. We could insist that if SK Hynix wants to put their plant here, which they obviously do (I mean they already built the roads to it), they get rid of that problem. Whatever that looks like.
Hello John! Who doesn't love a good data trail to follow? Ha!
I found more information surrounding similar birth issues:
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American Chipmakers Had a Toxic Problem. Then They Outsourced It
https://icrt.co/american-chipmakers-had-a-toxic-problem-then-they-outsourced-it/
Twenty-five years ago, U.S. tech companies pledged to stop using chemicals that caused miscarriages and birth defects. They failed to ensure that their Asian suppliers did the same.
--
And I agree. Not here means somewhere else.
As far as safety concerns, it's difficult when all assurances have been couched in current EPA and IDEM regulations (which can change at political will) and hypothetical plans created by SK Hynix which have not been produced and are non-binding.
West Lafayette was not planned to include so much industry. Sure Site A was rezoned to I3 back in 1992, but that doesn't mean it was the right decision.
Great write up and interview! Yeah, there seems to be a lot of misinfo around the SK Hynix plant and chip fab in general. Is worth pointing out that Purdue has the Birck Nanotechnology Center and the Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory (which is R&D and not industrial, but definitely still a "fab" and built to industrial spec) literally right behind the Aspire dorm. Chip fab in Indiana is also not entirely new, Kokomo had a chip fab for decades, into the late 2010s (e.g. https://www.kokomotribune.com/news/local_news/gmch-kokomo-fab-iii-looking-to-new-business-plan-to-keep-itself-going/article_335054de-97f5-5da6-8a92-6ed7a8cfde9d.html, and https://www.gminsidenews.com/threads/chip-shortage-whatever-happened-to-gm-kokomo.304137/). A number of the staff guys at Birck worked there! Advanced packaging/heterogenous integration like SK Hynix is doing, I don't know as much as I'd like about what chemical and material processes that involves, but based on other fabs, and the fact that the current SK Hynix advanced packaging plant is in the middle of an actual city, I'd have to think a reasonable setback (maybe like a football field?) would be fine for residential areas around it.
If it is so cool, build it next to the airport. Within sight of Evonik. Right on 231, no problem getting semis in or out. No problem getting city water/sewage there. (Hell, replace the airport. That is a money pit.) Why commit all remaining land adjacent to the most populous residential section of the city?! You know what is cooler than a "fab"? Shelter!
Yeah I'm not sure why that site at the airport (especially where the proposed Skywater plant was going to go and then didn't) wasn't desirable for them, I wish either them or PRF would have addressed that directly at the last meeting. They might need more space for supplier support? But regardless, I know that's a question at the forefront of a lot of people's minds.
That being said, I don't live near the Site A or B (though my kids are at a daycare close by), but it does seem like from an overall fit that site B gives them better isolation from residential areas to the north and west of Site A. I definitely get the concern from folks close about like, traffic, nosie, etc., just from having something there at all instead of corn fields. But at the same time, the whole point of a research park is to have something there and NOT be just cornfields.
It is a false choice. They are taking both sites, ramming suppliers in next to them because it is on a road built for corn viewing.
I actually don't think it's a false choice for SK Hynix or the neighborhoods around site A, if the rezone goes through they get a more coherent site layout and get more residential separation. But yeah if it doesn't go through, that doesn't mean SK Hynix won't build in the research park or that they won't have supplier support offices on site B, it just puts the Hynix facility closer to residential areas (important to point out: less affluent neighborhoods that don't have the clout of the neighborhoods bordering site B, and who aren't in city limits so don't even have representation) than they'd prefer to be.
I get that semiconductor nerds and SK Hynix are jazzed, but I SUPER do not care. Yeah, my house would be worth more, but whatever. We are focusing on negatives -- like we might have environmental issues and traffic will suck for sure -- but NOTHING POSITIVE that we as a community would miss out on if this did not happen. Purdue will not be Stanford and we definitely do not want to be Palo Alto. Let SK Hynix go to freaking Phoenix! We should wish them well, then fight to get that site A zoning changed to allow construction of housing that we ALREADY desperately need.
The positives are pretty clear. Driving additional work and industry to a city that has very little (WL) and the accompanying higher tax rate industry pays compared to residential. Not to mention the large number of jobs this one factory alone is bringing in, 1000ish, is great. Add in all the sub suppliers and that a huge boon for our entire county.
We do not need it THERE. The transportation infrastructure cannot accomodate ANY of it: people, suppliers, logistics. No amount of tax revenue will build more land. How is bringing in thousands of people without a plan to house them a good idea? This is the same negative externality issue as Purdue dumping its uncontrolled growth on WL. Last I checked, Purdue was a big employer. If SK Hynix wants to be near Purdue, anywhere in the county should be acceptable to both, and WL should get to choose its fate.
The housing problems brought by Purdue and the housing issues brought by businesses are completely different. Mainly because of the type of housing they are looking at and how quickly the housing can be built. Purdue ramped up super quick and apartment buildings can’t be built super quick.
But it will be years before this plant is fully operational, including the subtier suppliers, giving plenty of time for the housing market to build new homes. Like the new addition being proposed directly north of the plant.
One of many questions still unanswered is why is the already industrial zoned site near the airport where Skywater Technology was supposed to be but released their option for not being used for SK Hynix? That site already has the infrastructure and is next to a highway and doesn’t take away needed residential zoned land. It was only several months ago that there was a push for Accessory Dwelling Units because of lack of housing within city limits.
The ADU was primarily aimed at near campus for students. The workers at these plants will be non-student adults, many with families looking at owning a home or a nicer/bigger apartment then a typical college student. It’s different markets and not really comparable.
Remember the city doesn’t dictate where specific factories, businesses, etc go. The factory can go in a location that is zoned I3. They’ve made it clear if they can’t be in Site B they will just remain in Site A, which is closer to housing. Site B seems to be the better location for the company, the city, and the residents.
Where would you house these young families? My point is that it makes more sense to build houses on Yeager and have employees commute to a factory on 231, not the other way around.
The difference is commuting by car. A thousand more commuters is a non starter for Purdue. Near campus people are NIMBY because the only choice is removing existing buildings. Arbor Chase folks are talking about which greenfield construction site makes the most sense.
But that doesn’t answer the question about why the nearer to campus airport site is not being used for this company. The highway is there which is better for all concerned. The Skywater Technology company was supposed to have a larger facility than SK Hynix.
That’s a great question.
Might be a great one for Thursday.
My economic interest is pure Hell Yes IMBY. If SK Hynix eats north WL, it is a jackpot for me and other homeowners nearby. SK Hynix are the best possible occupants of an I3 zone, so we will have dodged a bullet there. When WL is reserved for multimillionaires, we might even get a Trader Joes! We will not have the nuisance of children in our parks and schools or renters in our neighborhood. I am all for it, except for the obvious: that is a dumb-ass place for a factory. This is the city planning equivalent of the dog who catches the car. Big $$ do nothing to help the city address persistent problems with housing availability and affordability. But I'm in, pull up the rope, screw the plebes.
You do not stay ahead by sitting still. That is a general rule of life. West Lafayette = Purdue University. This is not the Purdue that was here when I moved here in 1988. The spot this plant is being built on used to be a big gravel pit where I would hang out at night in high school. Purdue is a business now, and with federal funds being cut the way they are, we have to do things like this to be Purdue. It is about money, but not money going into pockets today.
Wait we get a Trader Joe’s
An off-brand one run by a MAGA: Traitor Joe (Biden)
They only sell Mountain Dew flavored pork rinds.
Ha! If I would have seen this comment, I wouldn't have responded to you above. Geesh. You are talking about my town I think, I don't even know if I should be insulted.
Excellent reporting Dave.
Has anyone brought up that there used to be a Whirlpool packaging plant across the street forever? I know it was there cause I worked it for about a week when I was 19. I think there were other similar businesses there also. The more I read about this project, the more I am swinging back in favor of it. But the planning that went into putting our crown jewel community center across from our desired crown jewel production plant is questionable.