LORDSTOWN French company picks site for auto exhaust system plant

The company wants to hire 15 to 20 employees and invest about $1.7 million.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
LORDSTOWN -- A major French auto-parts producer is making plans to open a plant here and to produce auto exhaust systems for General Motors' newest small-car offerings, the Chevy Cobalt and the Pontiac Pursuit.
Faurecia Exhaust Systems has signed a letter of intent to lease a 40,000-square-foot building at 1849 Bailey Road for five years with a five-year renewal option. Based in Toledo, it is a subsidiary of Faurecia, Europe's third-largest automobile equipment supplier.
Targeted site
Faurecia has its eye on a building about a quarter-mile from GM's Lordstown Assembly and Fabricating plants in the Hays Industrial Park. It was built about two years ago by Oakley Industries of Detroit as part of that company's plan to outsource wheel assemblies for GM's Cavalier and Sunbird models, but the arrangement fell through, and the building has never been occupied.
Ron Barnhart, Lordstown planning administrator, said he first heard from Faurecia in the early spring of this year. Officials toured several buildings, but the Oakley plant was their first choice.
"They were in a hurry. They wanted something right away," he recalled. "They couldn't wait to buy and build."
Mark Zigmont, a planner and economic development specialist for the Trumbull County Planning Commission, said Faurecia is seeking a 10-year, 50-percent personal property tax abatement for the plant.
In return, it promised to hire 15 to 20 full-time, permanent employees within the first two years and to invest about $1.7 million.
Expenditures would include $750,000 for new equipment, $280,000 for new furniture and fixtures and $666,000 for inventory.
Action expected
Lordstown Village Council is expected to act on the abatement request when it meets at 5 p.m. Monday. Trumbull County commissioners will vote on the issue at their July 9 meeting.
Lordstown school officials were notified and may attend the meetings to comment, Barnhart said, but they don't have the right to vote on abatements of less than 75 percent.
Dave Borysiak, manager of taxation and legal adviser for Faurecia, said the company has a five-year contract to manufacture 100 percent of GM's Cobalt exhaust systems. If the abatement is approved, he said, the company plans to sign a five-year lease for the Bailey Road building with a five-year renewal option.
Faurecia's original plan was to ship semifinished exhaust system components from its Franklin, Ohio, plant and have workers at the new Lordstown plant weld the parts together.
Officials are thinking about bringing more production to the Lordstown facility, Borysiak said, because they want to add more capacity in the United States and the building is large enough to accommodate other operations. A decision on that is still a while off, he said, but more production would mean a larger work force.
He said Faurecia needed a site close to the GM plant because of the automaker's just-in-time delivery system. GM wants parts delivered as they are needed rather than having them stockpiled in its plants, Borysiak said, and often suppliers have only 90 minutes to get a shipment processed and delivered.
Faurecia has more than 150 production sites in 27 countries around the world, including 13 in the United States, and produces exhaust systems, automotive seats and vehicle interiors. Faurecia Exhaust Systems has seven U.S. plants, including five in Ohio and one each in Kentucky and Indiana.