Google Moving The UAV Manufacturing Firm To The San Francisco Bay Area

Google has confirmed that it will be moving the UAV manufacturer it purchased last year from Moriarty, NM to the San Francisco Bay area in northern California.

In an email to the Albuquerque Business Journal, Google public policy & government affairs manager Angie Welling said that Google continues to be optimistic about the use of solar-powered UAVs to help deliver Internet service. They "look forward to Titan’s continued progress and collaboration alongside other Google teams in the Bay Area,” Welling said.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Moriarty Mayor Ted Hart also confirmed the move. Hart said that the company did not give him a timeline for the move. A meeting between Hart and Google was planned for Thursday.

Google will leave behind a $15 million building at Moriarty Airport. The city got a $1 million grant from the state to improve infrastructure at the airport for the building.

Hart said that Google's economic impact on the city was "not substantial," and while some service businesses might suffer, Google had not employed a lot of people at Titan.

Hart said that airport development would continue.

While Google owns the building, it leases the land on which it sits from the city. The two parties signed a five-year lease in 2014 with annual payments of $40,000, which will increase to $42,000 for the subsequent years.

The grant also came with provisions for jobs in Moriarty. Google had agreed to employ at least 35 people at the plant by late 2017. The state protected itself with "clawbacks" if those jobs, which were supposed to pay between $40,000 and $350,000 per year, are not realized.

FMI: www.cityofmoriarty.org/index.php?page=home