Holtec opens new facility on Camden waterfront

A more than 300-million dollar high tech manufacturing facility is up and officially open in Camden.

It’s one of the more high-profile companies the state lured to the struggling city with tax breaks.

Holtec International, which plans to build a new style of small nuclear reactors, opened its Camden manufacturing facility on the Delaware River in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Bridge.

Governor Chris Christie said with the aid of state funding, Camden is on the rebound.

“What you thought might never happen is happening and this city is becoming once again a leader in the region and a leader in this state.”

State Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney says the facility came as the result of more than a quarter billion dollars worth of economic development funding from the state.

“If you see what’s happening today in Camden, in Glassboro with Rowan, it’s all happening  because these incentives were put in place and real jobs are being created.”

Some of the 400 jobs are being brought to the facility from a location in Marlton.  The company wants to grow the workforce to one thousand within the next three years.

There is also a training program for Camden residents, although officials couldn’t provide specific numbers as to how many have been hired for the facility.

Holtec officials have gone even further than that, claiming to the Philadelphia Inquirer that the new Holtec Technology Campus could employ 1,000 people by the end of the decade and up to 10,000 people by 2030.

And Holtec said it has history on its side: At a event at the Camden site last year, Holtec President Kris Singh assured officials that the company has never laid off an employee for lack of work in its 30-year history.

Related story: Was N.J. ‘betting on wrong horse’ in giving Holtec $260M tax break for Camden move?