Alabama Offers Serious Competition for VW Plant

Volkwagen is about to make a big decision that will make a lot of people here in Chattanooga either very happy, or very disappointed. Europe's biggest auto maker is expected to announce the location of it's U.S. Assembly plant, and our city is reported to be a top-contender, along with another site near Athens, Alabama.

During the last month-and-a-half, NewsChannel 9 has been showing you the work moving at a feverish pace at the Enterprise South Industrial Park, and uncovering information about site, work and cost.

Meanwhile the Alabama site, just west of Huntsville, is also a TVA certified megasite ready for a large manufacturer like an automotive plant. And while officials there are keeping the specifics of the negotiations with Volkswagen a closely guarded secret, they're more open about what they have to offer.

A huge sign proudly marks, if not boasts of the TVA certified megasite just south of Athens in Limestone County, Alabama. The sign even features an aerial view, with drawings to show what the site "proposed for auto operations" would look like if developed. This map shows the site is about a half-hour drive west of Huntsville, between I-65 and Highway 31.

James Bledsoe who lives in the area, said, "Everything is still up in the air, they're saying it's between here and Chattanooga so everybody is just kind of waiting with excitement, so to speak."

Bledsoe has seen Limestone County dramatically change from a rural area in north Alabama to a manufacturing powerhouse with 73,000 people and growing. It's home to Steelcase's biggest U.S. Plant, sharing one of the county's first industrial parks with other big manufacturers like Vulcan Plastics. The county is part of a booming high-tech government-defense and military complex around the Huntsville metro area, and most notably, the space and rocket programs that put men on the moon.

Hug Ball, the President of the area's Chamber of Commerce, said, "When a geographical area is growing you want some kind of balance. You don't want to be all manufacturing, or all dedicated or dependent on any one facet of your economy."

Ball says Limestone County is also feeling the downside of going industrial. For example, we found one of the first big industries in the county, the Delphi automotive parts plant, will shut down operations within a year.

"It was a big let down as far as I'm concerned," said Bledsoe. "Jobs like this moving out so we got to keep our heads up and hope for the best."

The best for Bledsoe and the other 1,200 people being let go from Delphi, who are already trained in the automotive business, would be a Volkswagen plant that could provide up to 2,000 jobs.

In Limestone County there could be up to 2,000 acres available for a manufacturing facility like Volkswagen. But there's still a lot of work to do to connect with roads like Highway 31 or Interstate 65, way off in the distance.

The Alabama legislature is prepared to hold a special summer session to approve an incentives plan worth many millions of dollars to lure VW to this site. And there are plans for Alabama's Department of Transportation to connect the site with roads and rail lines, if needed. If Volkswagen chooses Limestone County, it would be the third overseas carmaker to choose Alabama for U.S. Operations.

But like Chattanooga, local and state officials won't talk publicly about their dealings with Volkswagen

Be sure to join us Monday on NewsChannel 9 as we compare and contrast Chattanooga's Enterprise South to what Alabama has to offer.