An industrial building off of Town East Boulevard in Mesquite that sat idle for about a decade is humming with the careful production of solar panels and equipment from Canadian Solar Inc.
The manufacturer and provider of solar energy products, based outside of Toronto and founded in 2001, has officially opened its first U.S. manufacturing operation.
The company has invested approximately $270 million on its new offices and factory space and has hired nearly 1,000 employees, according to Yan Zhuang, president of CSI Solar.
“We have plans for 1,500 American workers here,” said Zhuang during remarks at an opening ceremony on June 7. “We have about 1,000 already and more coming. In two more years, that number could double.”
When Canadian Solar hits 1,500 employees, it will be the second-largest private employer in the Dallas County city.
Physical expansion is already in the works at the factory, which has prime transit access near a Union Pacific Railroad intermodal freight terminal and a major UPS shipping hub.
Canadian Solar is in the process of adding 750,000 more square feet to its footprint in Mesquite to extend the current plant and to store product for customers.
The company originally identified the site in Mesquite in 2016, but the market wasn’t ready for the offering quite yet, said Thomas Koerner, senior vice president of Canadian Solar.
Eight years later, the demand is there.
“We believe the positive impact to the city of Mesquite, the greater area of Dallas, as well as the livelihoods of those workers here, makes a significant difference,” Koerner said.
Canadian Solar has 25,000 employees worldwide and reported $7.5 billion in revenue last year.
The company announced last year it would retrofit the 91-acre industrial campus in Mesquite into its first U.S. manufacturing facility. The campus, located south of U.S. Highway 80, dates back to the 1960s, formerly housing a Western Electric manufacturing plant.
Canadian Solar is set to make an even larger investment in Jeffersonville, Ind., where plans to spend $800 million on a solar photovoltaic cell manufacturing plant.
