Chattanooga: Regional planning necessary to prepare for VW

The tri-state area must think and act as a cohesive region in order to take advantage of the opportunities made available by the Volkswagen assembly plant coming to Enterprise South industrial park, officials said.

The message was presented Friday at The Chattanoogan, where city, county and Chamber of Commerce officials gathered to talk about the lessons they learned from a recent trip to Greenville, S.C., where BMW built an assembly plant about 15 years ago.

“We gained a lot of good information, but in order to make the most of it, we have to get busy,” Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said. “We can only do this if we work and plan effectively, regionally.”

More than 100 representatives from the area traveled to the South Carolina BMW plant in October. They toured the facilities and spoke with community leaders about how BMW affected the area.

Jim Kennedy, president of Kennedy, Coulter, Rushing & Watson, a Chattanooga-based strategic planning firm, compiled a report based on the trip and presented it Friday to about 200 community leaders from the tri-state region.

“If we learned nothing else, it is that we are holding an opportunity that none of us truly understands,” he said.

Officials said a regional planning team will be assembled shortly after the new year to begin addressing challenges the area will face.

Mr. Kennedy presented eight key areas that need addressing. They include thinking regionally, preparing for changes in education and work force training, transparent hiring, minority involvement, creating communication channels, bridging different cultures, preparing for growth and adjusting expectations.

According to the report, BMW initially invested about $600 million in the South Carolina plant, but they have invested a total of $1.9 billion over the past 15 years and created an annual economic impact of about $9 billion for the upstate South Carolina region, which includes 10 counties surrounding the plant.

The report states Greer, S.C., the exact location of the BMW plant, grew 68 percent in the first 10 years of the plant’s opening.

Tom Edd Wilson, president of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, said he is hopeful this region can learn from the BMW experience.

“We have a lot of wonderful opportunities before us,” he said. “We also have a lot of work before us.”

Mr. Kennedy said communication and cooperation throughout the tri-state region will be a critical part of planning for Volkswagen’s arrival in order to address challenges such as population growth and cultural differences.

Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey said the opportunities and challenges brought by the Volkswagen plant will help prepare the region for future opportunities as well.

“VW brought all this into focus. They made us stop and look at something we have all been talking about for a long time,” he said. “How do you prepare a work force? How to you prepare for growth? How do you get ready for that next opportunity? But that time is here. That time is now.”

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