Later today, Louisiana’s Economic Development Secretary plans to announce that a former supplier plant near Monroe, Louisiana, in Ouachita Parish, will be converted to a new car assembly plant set to employ about 1,400 people. Though the involved automaker is not known, reports suggest that high-efficiency gas-powered cars will be built at the plant, not electric cars.
Louisiana’s governor, Bobby Jindal, will also visit the area for the announcement, which is expected within a few hours. The state’s economic development fund was tapped to lure the unannounced automaker to the Bayou State.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the automaker will double the size of the former Delphi plant from 425,000 square feet to nearly 1 million. Construction will take about 15 months, reports the News Star.
The plant had been owned by Delphi, but before that supplier split off from General Motors, the facility was spun off as the independent Guide Corporation. It built lighting fixtures for new cars until 2007, when its assets were put up for auction, according to Automotive News. Now owned by Louisiana businessman James Davison, the project acquired about $15 million in local funding – in addition to the state funding – and is backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalists Ray Lane and John Doerr.
Located about 90 minutes from GM’s Shreveport Assembly, which builds the Hummer H3, the two plants were intricately tied together until 2007. It is not believed that the Detroit automaker, nor Hummer’s new Chinese buyer, has a hand in the new Louisiana plant, however.
