<p>News that South Korean automaker Kia Motors Corp. will open a $1.2 billion plant along the Georgia border with Alabama left Gwen Crosson wondering about feeding the construction workers who will build the plant and eventually those who will build cars there.</p><p>"I can't think of many construction workers who could come in and have a chicken salad sandwich," said Crosson, owner of The Deli in West Point. "So I'm going to have to add some more hearty sandwiches _ something that'll stick to their ribs so they can handle the jackhammers."</p><p>The prospect of nearly 3,000 well-paying factory jobs and another 2,600 in related supply companies was a shot in the arm for business owners like Crosson, who serve customers in an area known as "The Valley," a center of textile manufacturing since the Civil War.</p><p>Crosson gave up her job in a textile test lab to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a restaurant.</p><p>"I hope there are a lot of hungry people," she said. "There are a lot of people out of work around here. With textiles going crazy, a lot of jobs have gone astray. We'll see where it heads, and with Kia, maybe it'll be better."</p><p>The Valley includes Georgia and Alabama communities that were heavily dependent on the textile industry, which started with the West Point Manufacturing Company near West Point. The venture was so successful other textile firms, such as Pepperell Manufacturing Company and J.P. Stevens & Co., decided to build plants in Georgia and Alabama.</p><p>The descendant of the three companies, WestPoint Home, still has corporate offices in West Point.</p><p>But mill closings and company restructuring along the Chattahoochee River, the border separating the two states, have taken a toll on the 4,000 residents of West Point and on the neighboring Alabama towns of Lanett, Valley and beyond.</p><p>"We've depended so much on the textile industry for employment," said West Point Mayor Bill Head. "Now with the demise of the textile industry, this will give our local people an opportunity to see jobs with a future with a quality company, developing a quality product. We're just real excited."</p><p>Gov. Sonny Perdue arrived in Seoul, South Korea, over the weekend to sign off on the Kia plant deal, which was announced Sunday.</p><p>Perdue said Kia's decision to locate in his state "is a testament to the tools, experience and know-how Georgia will deliver to one of the automotive industry's leading innovators."</p><p>When the plant opens, it will hire 2,893 workers at an average annual salary of $50,000. Another 2,600 are expected to work at five supply companies, which have committed to place plants in Georgia near West Point to feed parts and materials to the main plant.</p><p>Kia President and chief executive officer E.S. Chung said the company, which produces budget sedans and sports utility vehicles, "has entered an aggressive growth phase in the U.S."</p><p>The Georgia plant is expected to produce 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles annually.</p><p>Cars will begin rolling off the Kia plant's two assembly lines in August 2008. The 2-million-square-foot plant will be in West Point. It will be the company's first U.S. manufacturing plant. Kia's parent company, Hyundai Motor Company, already has a plant in Montgomery, Ala. Proximity to that site _ combined with a $258 million incentive package from Georgia _ helped woo Kia executives.</p><p>Michael Daniels, an economist at Columbus State University, said the Kia plant will attract workers from Auburn, Opelaka and Phoenix City in Alabama and from as far away as LaGrange and Columbus in Georgia.</p><p>Columbus has recovered from a decades-long decline in textile manufacturing by shifting to technology and information-processing, Daniels said. But in smaller towns, such as West Point, the only option for a lot of former textile workers was the service industry, which didn't pay as well.</p><p>The Kia announcement comes on the heels of the Army's plans for a major expansion of Fort Benning, a move that is expected to bring 30,000 new soldiers, family members and contractors to the Columbus area.</p><p>"We saw the economy decline over decades," Daniels said. "With the Benning expansion and the Kia plant, the economy will grow very quickly."</p><p>The announcement of new Kia jobs was especially welcome for state officials in the wake of recent plant closing announcements. Ford Motor Co. announced earlier this year that it was closing its plant in Hapeville. General Motors is shuttering its plant in Doraville. And Georgia could lose thousands more jobs through the recently announced acquisition of Atlanta-based BellSouth by AT&T.</p><p>The psychological impact of Kia's announcement could mean that some west Georgia businesses decide to hang on, or that a supermarket chain decides to build a new store in anticipation of the growth.</p><p>Sharon Pearson, who runs the Craft Master Furniture Store in West Point with her husband and a partner, said business has been terrible for three years, but they decided to stick it out.</p><p>"All the mills were in this area," she said. "Most of them have left us and gone to China. Some weeks we'd have eight to 10 people who wanted to know if we had jobs available. We told them we were doing all we could just to hang on ourselves."</p><p>Pearson said she welcomes the new workers who'll be coming to her town.</p><p>"I hope we're going to make West Point come alive again because it's been tough," she said. "We hope people come and feel at home."</p>
