Mercedes plant now six times as large as original facility
Mercedes-Benz's initial $300 million investment to build an auto assembly plant in Vance in eastern Tuscaloosa County seemed like plenty at the time to a state and region that was just happy to land the iconic brand's facility and the thousands of jobs it would bring.
But there would be more to come — a lot more. And it's still coming. The company has repeatedly said it is committed to the plant, operating as Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, and most recently backed that up with its latest expansion, which began two years ago and is still under way. The investment of $1.3 billion is the largest for an industrial expansion in Tuscaloosa County’s history.
“This is the home for Mercedes-Benz SUVs,” said MBUSI President and CEO Jason Hoff in announcing the expansion in 2015, “and this will continue to be the home for Mercedes-Benz SUVs.”
The company has now invested $5.8 billion into expanding and overhauling the plant located 12 miles east of Tuscaloosa. What began as a 1.2 million-square-foot facility is now approximately 6 million square feet, with body, paint and assembly shops, a logistics center, a training institute and a visitor center all part of its ever-growing campus.
Of the overall investment, more than $3.5 billion has qualified for millions of dollars in tax abatements that were granted the company by the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority. In exchange for these tax deferments has come the promise of additional jobs, regional tax revenue increases and an improvement in the area's overall quality of life.
Major expansions at the plant include:
$80 million — 1998/1999: These expansions and additions came about a year after the first M-Class — now known as the the GLE — sport utility vehicles were manufactured. Its intent was to meet the public demand of the new SUV and increased production by 20 percent, allowing for the annual manufacturing of 80,000 vehicles.
$600 million — 2000: With Alabama now seen as a serious player in automobile manufacturing, MBUSI announced this expansion would create an additional 2,000 jobs. Opened in 2005, this project doubled the overall size of the plant and added the R-Class production of vehicles alongside the second-generation M-Class and the soon-to-be-announced GL-Class, a full-size SUV.
$290 million — 2009: This expansion, which took more than two years to complete, included a 200,000-square-foot addition to the plant’s body shop, new equipment and new robotics for a new generation of SUVs.
$670.53 million — 2011: This expansion grew the body shop, paint and assembly shops to accommodate production of the C-Class sedan. This 225,000-square-foot addition provided additional floor space needed for the overlap of MBUSI’s current models and successors to the plant’s production.
$70 million — 2013: This marked the groundbreaking of the Mercedes-Benz Logistics Center. Opening in December of that year, this 900,000-square-foot expansion was developed to streamline logistics operations and support receiving, handling and sequencing of parts.
$1.3 billion — 2015: MBUSI announced and began construction on this addition to its sprawling automotive assembly complex two years ago. A third MBUSI body shop is at the center of this expansion and covers about 1.4 million square feet. Called Project Gateway, it is being built to accommodate the demand for Mercedes’ sport utility vehicles; the project also involves smaller expansions in other areas of the MBUSI complex.
To construct the body shop, Mercedes built a small mountain out of the 1.3 million cubic yards of dirt it removed for the project.
The body shop building features 13 million pounds of structural steel and more than 500 million pounds of steel deck. Thousands of trucks laid 70,000 cubic yards of concrete — enough to pour 265 miles of 4-foot-wide sidewalk.
“There’s a joke we always share about that body shop,” Hoff said earlier this year. ”If you stand at the north end and look to the south, you can see the Earth’s curve.”
Primary construction on the latest expansion was completed earlier this year, with robotics and other equipment being installed now. Production of the company's next-generation SUVs, many of which will be hybrids, is slated to start in the facility next year.
A driving force
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