Senator Lamar Alexander Visits VW Site

As site work continues for the $1-billion Chattanooga Volkswagen plant other economic effects are made clearer during Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander's tour of the Enterprise South Industrial Park.

There were several highlights discussed during Thursday's tour. First, we can expect announcements soon about several major manufacturers joining Volkswagen at Enterprise South. And our region will be the center of an emerging industry bringing electric and alternative fuel technology to car manufacturing.

"I fully expect Tennessee to be the number-one state in terms of auto supply jobs over the next ten to twenty years," Sen. Alexander said.

Tennessee's senior Senator helped recruit the automotive industry to Tennessee during the last 30 years in his capacity as Governor and U.S. Senator. Nissan opened a plant and moved it's U.S. headquarters to middle Tennessee which is also home to Saturn, while southeast Tennessee landed it's first mega-manufacturer in decades bringing Volkswagen to Chattanooga.

About 10,000 people now work in the state's auto assembly plants - 2,000 more will be working when Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant is finished in late 2010.

There are about 125,000 auto supplier jobs, a third of the state's manufacturing jobs according to Sen. Alexander. He said thousands more supplier jobs will be created to work with Volkswagen.

"The auto assembly plant is a money magnet, it's unlike any other type of industry I've seen in the country and it's what justifies the expenditure of public dollars to attract the plant," Sen. Alexander said.

Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said "we're standing in the middle of the bulls-eye of the development that's going to sweep the area."

The Senator, Mayor Littlefield and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey toured the 1,350-acre site that changes it's appearance on a daily basis. As 60,000-70,000 cubic yards of dirt are moved every day to flatten the site, Volkswagen and it's contractor are finalizing plans to begin building the plant in a few months.

Volkswagen is also leading the effort to recruit other major manufacturers it will depend on.

"We know that there will be probably five or six tier-1 suppliers on site, on the Volkswagen site," Mayor Ramsey said.

Those tier-one suppliers will in turn recruit tier-two and tier-three suppliers that will go on another 240-acre site at Enterprise South.

As the Senator and Mayors look forward to all the jobs coming to Enterprise South they're also looking at the site being a catalyst for an entirely new industry coming to the Tennessee Valley - future engines that don't run on gasoline.

Volkswagen is known for it's clean diesel engines, but is also researching new engine technologies like hydrogen cell and electric motors that will fit in well with UTC and UTK's research programs, along with the area's development of electric vehicles like the battery powered buses CARTA uses in the downtown district.

"They were very interested in the proximity to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee research facilities and were very impressed with what Chattanooga has already done in terms of focusing on electric vehicles and fuel efficient vehicles," Sen. Alexander said.

On another related front, the process of bringing new VW executives and other manufacturing executives to the area is beginning. Charlie Walldorf of realtors Herman Walldorf & Company said they are part of a team to find homes for those families. He said there's a lot of interest in downtown condo's and upscale homes throughout the area.