YOUNGSTOWN Is there Hyundai in our future?

Two development experts said it's likely too late for the Mahoning Valley to be considered.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Word that two small Ohio cities are in the running for a $1 billion Hyundai plant has some public officials scrambling to get the Mahoning Valley into the fray.
Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey and development agency directors in Warren and Columbiana County were all checking Friday to see if their communities might have a chance to compete for the project and the 2,000 jobs it is expected to create.
But Reid Dulberger, executive vice president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the Valley's primary development agency will not be pushing for a chance to compete.
He thinks the Korean automaker is too far along in the selection process to consider a new contender.
"We were not one of the communities the company was interested in looking at," he said. "I'm sure they've gone through an exhaustive and very professional search, and we're not going to convince them that everything they've done is wrong."
Agrees: A spokesman for Gov. Bob Taft agreed that it's likely too late for the Valley to be considered. Joe Andrews said state officials were contacted by Hyundai to recommend several sites and the automaker chose two as possibilities: Wapakoneta in northwest Ohio and Mount Orab in southern Ohio.
Andrews would not say whether the state included the Mahoning Valley among its recommended sites and would not discuss what Hyundai was looking for in a site. The company is reportedly looking at locations in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio for its first assembly plant in the United States.
Didn't know till Friday: McKelvey hadn't heard about Hyundai's plans until contacted by a reporter Friday, but he said he would ask the city's economic development office to start looking into it immediately.
The mayor said he wasn't surprised that the city had not been informed of the project by state or local development officials.
"Sometimes these discussions are top secret, and it's hard to penetrate the veil," McKelvey said. "But we'll be contacting Hyundai to see if we can have the opportunity to be considered. Hopefully, it's not too late."
Likewise, Michael Keys, director of Warren Redevelopment and Planning, said he planned to discuss the Hyundai project at a meeting Monday morning with Warren Mayor Hank Angelo and Julie Michaels, a local representative for the Ohio Department of Development.
"We don't want to get started putting together a proposal if it's already been decided," he explained.
Keys said it's not unusual for companies seeking a new site to set certain criteria. "The only thing that would upset me is if we met the criteria and we didn't get a chance to try," he said.
Complaint: At the Columbiana County Port Authority, director Tracy Drake said he was "a little concerned" that the company chose two Ohio sites without allowing other communities to be equal participants. He said his representative at Ohio Department of Development was also unaware of the project.
Columbiana County recently invested more than $12 million on improvements in two industrial parks, one off state Route 7 and the other off state Route 11, and both with adequate space to accommodate a large auto assembly plant, Drake said.
"I need to know how and why those other sites came under consideration," he said. "All I want is an equal opportunity to pursue it."
Michaels and Dulberger both said they had heard that Hyundai had been looking for a site close to Interstate 75 in western Ohio, a highway that's sometimes called "auto alley" because it has so many auto assembly plants and auto parts manufacturing plants nearby.
Wapakoneta, with a population of about 9,500, is very close to I-75. Mount Orab, with about 2,300 residents, is about 25 miles east of I-275, which connects to I-75 north of Cincinnati.
Not unusual: Dulberger said he learned about the Hyundai proposal earlier this week, but he argued that it's not unusual for state development officials to limit their contacts to the areas a company has expressed interest in.
For example, he said, when MCI WorldCom expressed an interest in the site it eventually chose for its Niles call center, the state did not feel obligated to give every other community in the state a chance at it.
Dulberger acknowledged that some would argue the Valley should pursue the project, even if it may be a "one in a million chance."
"There's a cost to dropping everything you're working on to pursue a one-in-a-million chance," he said. "We'd rather focus on things that are real and that have some possibility of success."
Hyundai in U.S.: A subsidiary of its Korean-based parent, Hyundai Motor America has its national headquarters in Fountain Valley, Calif. and has other operations in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia and Oregon. The company has more than 500 U.S. dealerships, including Preston Hyundai in Boardman and Sharon, Pa.
Public relations officials at the company's California corporate offices said they could not provide details on the company's plans for its first U.S. assembly plant, because the project is being coordinated by officials in Korea.
Stephen Kitson, a Hyundai spokesman in Korea, confirmed to The Associated Press that Taft has met in Seoul, South Korea with several Hyundai officials, including Chairman Chung Mong-koo, but said the visit "certainly did not involve any discussion or negotiations on our plan."
Kitson said that Hyundai has set up a "project team" to look into the company's U.S. investment but that any decisions on key details, including its location, will not be made until next year.