Toyota is cruising along: Buildings all but finished, manufacturing equipment just a few months away
Web Posted: 06/29/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Sean M. Wood
Express-News Business Writer
Construction of the $800 million Toyota truck plant buildings in South San Antonio is nearly complete.
(Edward A. Ornelas/Express-News)
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas is scheduled to move its offices from KellyUSA to the South Side plant later this summer.
Now the facility is just a few months away from the installation of the equipment that will crank out 150,000 Tundras a year.
More than 1,200 people are working on the construction site. Toyota Project Leader Paul Street said work is nearly complete with the buildings' enclosure. The roofs are on, the lights are on and the roads and underground utilities are all going in.
Street said the next big step is the installation of things such as fans, pumps and the heating, air conditioning and ventilation for the 1.8 million-square-foot plant. Soon afterward the manufacturing equipment will be installed.
"The building portion gets a lot of the early and completely undeserved praise," Street said. "The real moneymakers in this process are the equipment folks. The different shops will begin at different times in the coming months."
Street said installation of paint and assembly equipment will start in September. The plastics shop installation will start in October and the welding shop equipment will follow in November.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas is even scheduled to move its offices from KellyUSA to the plant later this summer, spokesman Aaron Seaman said.
The plant isn't the only construction project at the site. There will be 18 suppliers on the property as well. Each is charged with building its own facility, though one or two might find a home inside the plant.
Max Navarro, owner of Operational Technologies Corp., which is a partner in Toyota supplier Vutex, said Toyota is handling all the scheduling. "The sooner, the better," Navarro said. "We look forward to supporting Toyota."
HERO Assemblers is one of the companies that may be inside the plant. A partnership of Valiente International Ventures and TAI, the company puts tires on wheels.
Valiente's Frank Herrera said if HERO has to build its own facility, it will have to be done quickly. Either way, Herrera is eager for the plant to swing into operation. He compared it with Kelly AFB in terms of elevating people to the middle class in San Antonio and getting kids interested in staying in town rather than moving away.
"It will be a renaissance period for San Antonio," Herrera said. "We've had a brain drain in this area. Hopefully with this opportunity, our brains will come home."
On the east side of the site, work has started on a 58-acre marshalling yard where Tundra pickups fresh from the assembly line will be shipped to dealers across North America.
The facility will be owned by Toyota Logistics Services and cost about $40 million. There will also be a 93-acre rail yard to ship vehicles out and bring supplies in.
"We're finishing up the grading and have the drainage in," said John Daly, project manager for Logistics Services. "We're putting in the gravel for the rail bed. We'll put the rail and begin building the track in July, and then we'll have that finished by summer '06."
San Antonio Fact Sheet
Plant site: 2,000 acres
Current Investment*: $800 million
Employment*: approx. 2000
Products: Tundra full-size pickup trucks
Operations: Stamping, body weld, paint, plastics, and assembly
Production
Start-up: Fall 2006
Annual Production Capacity: 150,000 Tundra full-size pickup trucks
* Projected
Source:
www.toyota.com