The first step was for Yokohama Tire Corp. to decide where it wanted to build its new commercial tire manufacturing plant. The second step was to choose an architect.
A little over two months ago, Yokohama announced its plan to build the facility in West Point, Miss. (see "Yokohama gets OK from Mississippi for new plant"). On July 11, the company made public its selection of Kajima Associates/Architects & Engineers PC of Atlanta, Ga., to design the first phase of the project -- a 931,000-square-foot factory that will include production, warehousing and operations facilities.
“We planned for the project to take on a brisk pace, and we are extremely pleased it is progressing as scheduled,” says Thomas Masuguchi, senior vice president and chief strategy officer. “The demand for Yokohama’s commercial tire products is outpacing our current production capacity, and the faster we move along the plant’s timeline, the faster we can increase our supply to meet our dealer requirements."
Yokohama will make an investment of $300 million and create approximately 500 jobs as part of the initial phase. Construction is slated for this summer; the company expects its first wholly owned commercial tire manufacturing plant in the United States to be completed in October 2015.
At full-capacity, the plant is expected to be able to produce up to one million tires annually.
Yokohama and Continental Tire the Americas LLC jointly own the GTY truck tire plant in Mount Vernon, Ill. Its production capacity is 3,900 truck tires per day, according to the 2013 Modern Tire Dealer Facts Issue. The majority of that production is branded by Continental.
For more information on Yokohama’s extensive product line, visit www.yokohamatire.com. You also can connect with Yokohama on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube:
