SUMMARY
The Greenville/Spartanburg BMW manufacturing plant is at the center of growth in the Upstate region within the automotive industry. Having created a whole network of suppliers and automotive researchers by locating this plant near Greenville – BMW has created jobs in the region and invested billions of dollars in Greenville and the surrounding areas.
ARTICLE
In 1994, the Greenville/Spartanburg BMW manufacturing plant opened in Spartanburg, SC. Because it is the only manufacturing plant in North America for BMW, Greenville and the rest of the Upstate region of South Carolina has experienced tremendous growth and advances in the automotive industry since the plant opened.
The Greenville/Spartanburg BMW plant is on a 1,150 acre site. Currently the plant serves as the only manufacturing site for BMW’s X5, X6, and Z4 lines. This means that the plant manufactures these vehicle lines not only for North American buyers – but buyers world wide as this is the only facility that builds these cars.
Not only has BMW created a whole host of jobs working directly at the plant for residents of the Greenville area – over 5,000 in all – but it has also created thousands more jobs in the region because of the automotive parts suppliers and research facilities that have invested in the area.
BMW invested a total of $2.2 billion in the region when it built this plant. With this investment a whole network of automotive suppliers, researchers, and companies followed BMW’s lead. In all – the initial investment by BMW has created over 23,000 jobs in South Carolina and generates more than $1.2 billion dollars in salaries for employees each year according to a study that was done in 2008 by researchers at the University of South Carolina. According to that same report – for every job at the Greenville/Spartanburg BMW plant, another 4.3 jobs have been created in the state and Greenville area.
With the influx of automotive investment, Clemson University has created the International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR) in Greenville as well as the only doctoral program in automotive engineering in the country. Once the textile capital of the world, Greenville is quickly becoming an automotive manufacturing and research center because of the impact of the Greenville/Spartanburg BMW plant.
BMW chose the Greenville area for its manufacturing plant for a number of reasons. Even though there was not a long history in Greenville with the automotive industry prior to the building of the BMW plant – there were a number of other factors that played into BMW’s decision. The Greenville region has a highly trained technical workforce because of the educational system and colleges in the area. There is fantastic infrastructure in the area with the rail system and the close proximity of a deep water port. And there are a number of favorable tax laws to promote the growth of industry in the state of South Carolina. Couple this with the close proximity of much of BMW’s target market – the building of the Greenville/Spartanburg BMW plant was an easy decision to make.
In the coming years – because of the city’s and state’s investments into the growth of the automotive industry – BMW is in the process of investing millions of dollars to update and expand their manufacturing facilities. According to the University of South Carolina’s economic impact study – this is going to create more than 5,000 new jobs in the region before 2010.
Along with the residents, government, and educational institutions (namely Clemson University) of the Greenville, SC area – BMW plans to invest more resources to improve the automotive industry in the Greenville area. The Greenville/Spartanburg BMW plant is at the center of this growth, working as an economic catalyst for the whole Upstate region.
Updated: January, 2010