February 8, 2007

Toyota Moving Forward

Arkansas News Bureau columnist David Sanders reports that Tennessee congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis is is "actively lobbying" Toyota Motor Co. to build its next plant in Arkansas rather than in Chattanooga. The Arkansas site at Marion is about 10 miles from Memphis. The latest AP story has some interesting details on Toyota's site search.

Newspapers have reported that Chattanooga is a finalist, along with Marion, Ark. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, also named Chattanooga and Marion, along with Alamo, Tenn., and Davidson County, N.C.

But Chattanooga's mayor, Tennessee's governor and the state's top industry recruiter won't say anything specific about the Toyota plant.

Officials in Chattanooga already have a 1,600-acre industrial site ready, and they have a contract with the law firm of Howard Baker, the former U.S. senator and ambassador to Japan, to help with economic development. Baker declined to comment.

Beyond the 2,000 jobs, the Toyota plant could make an even bigger employment ripple, with an indirect impact of about 10,000 jobs, according to studies by the Center for Automotive Research.

Michael Randle, the editor and publisher of Southern Business and Development magazine, said he has correctly predicted most auto-assembly plant sites, starting with BMW in South Carolina in 1992. He's not ruling out Chattanooga, but he guesses that Toyota will pick Marion, Ark., this time.