Caterpillar picks Georgia for new plant

Caterpillar has selected a location near Athens, Georgia for a new $200 million hydraulic excavator manufacturing facility.

Arkansas economic officials had been working to land the plant in state, possibly in Fort Smith to help alleviate increasing jobs losses in the city’s manufacturing sector.

Whirlpool Corp. plans to close its Fort Smith refrigeration manufacturing plant by mid-2012, with about 1,000 jobs to be lost in that move. Trane recently announced it will cut an estimated 59 jobs later this year as it moves some production from its Fort Smith plant to a Columbia, S.C., plant.

Employment in the Fort Smith regional manufacturing sector during December was 20,700, down more than 32% from more than a decade ago when January 2001 manufacturing employment in the area was 30,700.

Today (Feb. 17), Caterpillar officials said the state-of-the-art, one-million-square-foot-facility is expected to directly employ 1,400 people once it is fully operational. The company will make mini hydraulic excavators and small track-type tractors.

Caterpillar estimated another 2,800 full-time jobs will be created in the U.S. among suppliers and at other non-Caterpillar companies that will support the new facility.

“We are making a series of significant investments around the world to position Caterpillar to maintain its leadership position, and I am thrilled to be in Georgia today to announce that Athens will be the newest city to be home to a Caterpillar production facility. We are even more excited that this project will create more than 4,200 jobs in the United States,” said Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman.

Gov. Mike Beebe (D) said in a Talk Business interview last week that the Caterpillar operation “absolutely” had a chance to locate in Fort Smith or another part of Arkansas.

Earlier this month, he had also been on financial news channel CNBC pitching Arkansas’ assets for the new Caterpillar plant while on location at Caterpillar’s new North Little Rock motor grader factory. Fort Smith, which has a deeply-rooted manufacturing base and pending layoffs at a Whirlpool refrigerator factory, was considered a prime location for the new Caterpillar plant.

“Arkansas is open for business, especially manufacturing,” Beebe said in the CNBC interview. He touted the state’s central U.S. location, transportation and distribution infrastructure, and economic incentives.

However, Beebe said “quality of workforce” could be the biggest factor to influence Caterpillar’s decision. He hoped the 600 employees working in North Little Rock would be testimony for that advantage.