Georgia may be winner on van plant, 3,000 jobs

Posted 1:50PM on Thursday 17th October 2002 ( 22 years ago )

CHARLESTON, S.C. - For the second time in a decade, a parcel of land South Carolina offered for a vehicle manufacturing plant was passed over as the state lost the competition Thursday for a $700 million DaimlerChrysler van plant and the 3,000 jobs that go with it. Summerville, about 25 miles northwest of Charleston, and Savannah, Ga., had been in competition for the plant after Jacksonville, Fla., was eliminated. Nearly a decade ago, Mercedes looked at the same 1,500-acre tract along Interstate 26 near Summerville but chose to build a new auto plant in Alabama. ``If DaimlerChrysler decides to build a U.S. plant, we have been informed that South Carolina has been outbid by Georgia,'' said state Secretary of Commerce Charlie Way. Officials here say they were notified in a letter from Rolf Bartke, the senior vice president of the DaimlerChrysler Van Division. The letter said the company will not make a decision on whether to build a new U.S. plant to make Sprinter vans until next July, but if a plant is built, it will be located in Georgia. Way said the state offered incentives worth $346 million, but ``we were unable to match Georgia's bid.'' The package was the most South Carolina could offer and any more would have meant a net loss for the state, he said. The state offered $150 million in incentives to lure the BMW plant to Greer, where ground was broke a decade ago. That package would be worth $202 million today, according to Commerce Department figures. The details of Georgia's incentive package have not been released, but that state is offering a $23 million tract near the interchange of Interstates 16 and 95, according to media reports. The fact that South Carolina did not own the land it was offering also was a stumbling block, Way said. ``We were unable to purchase the land without a firm commitment that the project would be built, and DaimlerChrysler was unwilling to proceed unless we owned the land,'' he said. DaimlerChrysler spokesman Randy Jones in North Carolina would not comment Thursday and said any announcement would have to come from company officials in Germany. Officials there, when contacted by The Associated Press, also refused to comment. Although some local lawmakers had confirmed that the Summerville tract was the proposed site for the plant, company and state officials never did. Documents from the state Commerce Department seeking permits for the project referred to it only as Project Blue Bell. The plant construction would have required filling 100 acres of wetlands and building a new interchange on the interstate, according to documents with the permit application. Both a manufacturing facility and a training center were envisioned as part of the project, which also would involve construction of a rail spur. In addition to the main parcel, an additional 250 acres were set aside for future expansion. The state Office of Coastal Resource Management issued a wetlands fill permit after South Carolina Public Railways agreed to buy and protect all or some of Bonneau Ferry Plantation. The mitigation would have required South Carolina Public Railways to put $4.5 million into escrow. The money, combined with state, federal and private funds, would have been used to purchase all or portions of the plantation where a ferry once operated near the east branch of the Cooper River.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/10/201841