Elected officials and business recruiters in at least 11 Midwestern and southern states are wooing Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp., which announced a joint venture to build a $1.6 billion U.S. factory to produce Toyota Corollas and cross-over models that Mazda plans to introduce to the North American market.
Pending approvals and authorization by government agencies, the companies will begin to examine detailed plans for a new plant funded with equal capital contributions by both companies with an estimated production capacity of about 300,000 units annually and create up to 4,000 jobs at the start of production, targeted for 2021.
Toyota first must decide on a site for the plant. The company declined to comment on which states are in the running for the plant. The Wall Street Journal last week reported that Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas are on the short list.
“We are just beginning the discovery process and working to quickly outline our priorities, criteria and other metrics to help define a cohesive strategy for this project,” Scott Vazin, vice president and chief communications officer Toyota Motor North America, Inc., told CoStar.
Vazin added that the venture is working through JLL to gather information on candidate sites and will share more information about the selection process as plans are solidified.
JLL represented Toyota in 2014 when the company decided to relocate its North American manufacturing, sales and marketing headquarters from Torrance, CA, to the Legacy West development in Plano, TX. The project, developed by Fehmi Karahan, KDC and Columbus Realty Partners, formally opened in June.
While Mazda does not yet have a U.S. factory, Toyota’s existing U.S facility and the joint venture’s quest for manufacturing efficiencies may provide some insight into the decision making process.
In their announcement, Toyota and Mazda said they intend to “improve competitiveness in manufacturing” through the new collaboration. Toyota, in further increasing its production capacity in the U.S., said it will “further pursue management that is closer to the region” to improve its response to the growing North American market.
As such, Toyota said it plans to produce its Tacoma model, instead of the Corolla, at its new plant under construction in Guanajuato, Mexico. The proposed new U.S. will have no substantial impact on Toyota’s investment and employment in Guanajuato, the company said.
However, Toyota existing facility in Blue Springs, Mississippi, already produces Corollas at a plant opened in 2011, and state officials hope to grow the partnership. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said in a Facebook post last week that the state is “working hard to grow our automotive manufacturing industry,” noting that the Toyota Blue Springs factory is “a success story known around the world.” The state provided nearly $360 million in incentives under former Gov. Haley Barbour to attract Toyota.
Source: CoStar
Larry W. Genet is a Senior Vice President in the CBRE, Inc. Miami, FL office. As part of the CBRE platform Mr. Genet can provide a wide range of services from local to Fortune 1000 clients including agency and tenant representation, asset or portfolio management, high level logistics, labor and data analytics prior to site selection, project/construction management, capital markets, owner user sales and valuation advisory services. CBRE is the global leader for real estate services worldwide.
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