MALTA, N.Y. -- It’s 223 acres of really sandy soil at an old missile test site and it’s now owned by GlobalFoundries. The company paid $7.7 million for the land inside Luther Forest Tech Park. It's where the company has committed to building a $4.2 billion computer chip plant.

"We are looking forward to hundreds of millions of dollars of economic development in a time when it is not happening anywhere else in the country," said Travis Bullard, GlobalFoundries Spokesman.

"If GlobalFoundries builds their three fabs out, you are looking at 5,000 jobs there. If we bring in two other large manufactures, that's several thousand jobs there," said Michael Releyea, LFTC President

Bullard said Global will make chips for the company that spun it off, AMD, and will make them for any other company it can attract by the time the plant is up and running by 2012.

"Today's current economic climate is cloudy, but we are confident by the time we put our chips in the market, hopefully things will turn around," said Bullard.

Ground-breaking is scheduled for next month and leaders said the Capital Region has been building its own infrastructure up over the years, with the hopes of attracting a chip company.

A $67 million water line to the tech park, a $22 million bypass of Round Lake for tech park truck traffic and a $52 million upgrade of the Saratoga County's sewage treatment plant were all geared toward attracting a company like GlobalFoundries.

Area leaders said the millions of dollars spent building Albany NanoTech and the more than a billion dollars the in incentives company is getting sealed the deal.

"It takes a certain type of investment and a certain type of investor. It is not a McDonald's franchise," said Malta Supervisor Paul Sausville.

Some say that the project will pay for itself in five years. Time will tell.