Local Leaders Excited, But Cautious Over Possibility Of 5,000 New Jobs

September 28, 2009

The prospect of 5,000 new jobs near Bay Minette has local economic leaders excited — and a bit cautious.

atmorecenturycar10.jpgHybrid Kinetic Motors Corp. has big plans to produce 300,000 hybrid cars per year by 2013, and up to one million per year by 2017.  Prior to the first vehicle rolling off the assembly line, there would be thousands of construction jobs for the facility to be located on 3,000 acres northeast of Bay Minette.

“I’m excited to hear that,” Century Mayor Freddie McCall,  said after the announcement by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley McCall is also director of the Century Chamber of Commerce. “We would be close enough that some of our local people would go to work here.

Sheryl Vickery, executive director of the Atmore Area Chamber of Commerce, was also pleased to hear the announcement.

“A lot of people from Atmore used to work at Standard Furniture,” Vickery said. “It is going to help everyone within a 40 to 50 mile radius. I hope it will be a big impact for our area.”

Both Vickery and McCall expressed the same caution with their optimism — while the plant has been official announced, HK Motors Corp. must first secure well over a billion dollars in financing before the first shovel of dirt is turned.

“We have to be sit back and wait and hope this happens,” Vickery said.

McCall and Vickery said both Atmore and Century will be ready when the final official announcement comes to make sure their areas are ready for any spin-off  companies that might need a location. When a large manufacturing company opens, smaller spin-off suppliers typically open in the surrounding area to provide goods and services to the main plant.

McCall knows first hand that announced industries do not always materialize. In 2008, a company announced it was creating 1,100 jobs with an electric car manufacturing facility in Century, but the owners of LHS EV dropped Century from their plans after they did not receive a $2.5 million grant to help them open their doors.

“We’ve been busy cleaning up the Helicopter Technologies building,” McCall said. “We’ll have it ready anytime anyone is interested.” The town recently acquired the 40,000 square foot building in the Century Industrial Park at a foreclosure auction.  The town also has the former Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company site available with 336,400 square feet of space on 38 acres.

Comments

4 Responses to “Local Leaders Excited, But Cautious Over Possibility Of 5,000 New Jobs”

  1. BarrineauParkDad on September 29th, 2009 8:03 pm

    I wouldn’t hold my breath on this thing being successful. That is one ugly little rolling coffin.

  2. bleh on September 28th, 2009 9:49 pm

    For sure they will built it in Alabama, as Alabama has almost no business regulations. So you can expect the workers won’t be treated that well or at least low paid.

    Hope they can sell those cars here, would be nice

  3. John H. Leonard on September 28th, 2009 6:46 pm

    What will be the prevailing wage structure at this new plant? Will it be competitive with other plants located in the southeast such as mercedes and toyota or will it be a much lower wage scale since the owners are chinese.

  4. David Huie Green on September 28th, 2009 12:34 pm

    China takes IOUs from the USA of something like a billion dollars per day as we pay for government spending by borrowing from them. They could take a couple of those IOUs and build what is proposed with plenty of money left over for miscellaneous projects.

    At some point they ARE going to try to collect on them and those will be interesting times.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News