Tire maker chooses Georgia over Tenn.

Sentury rules out Regional Megasite in Haywood County

USA Today Network — Tennessee

Chinese tire maker Sentury Tire Americas has decided to locate in Georgia rather than the Memphis Regional Megasite, a stateowned industrial park 25 miles east of Memphis.

“It’s not the news we wanted, but it’s the news we got,” Haywood County Mayor Franklin Smith said Tuesday. “We think the decision was made Thursday, and we found out about it Friday.”

Sources told The Jackson Sun in July that the Megasite in Haywood County and the site at LaGrange, Georgia, were the two finalists for the 600-employee tire plant.

Sentury would have been the first tenant in the Megasite. The property is now being prepared for multiple smaller plants. Tennessee state officials purchased the 1,400-acre tract nearly a decade ago to accommodate an automobile assembly plant that never materialized.

Word that Sentury was considering the site stirred excitement throughout West Tennessee, where small towns are struggling for new jobs. The tract is located on Interstate 40 about 32 miles west of Jackson.

The Chinese tire manufacturer was expected to invest an initial $500 million and expand to several thousand jobs. The final investment could top $1 billion, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

If the Memphis Regional Megasite had been selected, the plant would have been situated on about 545 to 560 acres.

“It’s a tremendous disappointment,” Smith said. “They started with 50 sites and got those down to five sites. When it got down to two, I felt comfortable they would choose Tennessee, but it didn’t work out.”

For the Megasite, the state says it has appropriated about $140 million in development of the site and requires another $75 million to complete the industrial park.

“We had a good team working on this, and they did what they could,” Smith said. “We need jobs in West Tennessee desperately. The state worked well with the local folks and we gave it all we had, but it just didn’t work out.”