Westinghouse Electric Company will form a joint venture with engineering and construction company Shaw Group inc. to build a facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that will produce and assemble modules for nuclear power plants. Global Modular Solutions, LLC, the name of the joint venture, will construct a 600,000-square-foot facility on 300 acres at the Port of Lake Charles and hire approximately 1,400 new workers. The facility, the first of its kind in the United States, will produce steel structural, piping, and equipment modules for new nuclear plants that utilize Westinghouse AP1000 technology; it is scheduled to be operational in the third quarter of 2009. At the same time, Shaw Group has committed to retaining its corporate headquarters in Baton Rouge and to increase its professional/non-craft jobs there by 1,500 at an average annual salary of $50,000 plus benefits. The Louisiana governor's office says the $210 million incentive package for the company includes $32.5 million for infrastructure, work force training, and dock bulkhead improvements; $50 million in state tax exemptions over a 10-year period; and $17 million in local property tax abatement over a 15-year period.