Mazda Toyota exec: Construction at site to peak with 2,500 workers
LIMESTONE COUNTY – Construction at the site of the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing USA auto assembly plant could reach a peak later this month, said an executive with the joint venture that will produce SUVs for both automakers.
“The peak of construction will be the end of August or early fall,” said Mark Brazeal, vice president of administration for Mazda Toyota. “We expect to have 2,500 construction workers on the site.”
The 3.3 million-square-foot plant will require 1,600 steel beams to be raised and put in place to develop the framework of the buildings, according to Brazeal. The $1.6 billion project in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County hit a milestone in late April when the first steel column was raised.
“We’re about 75% complete with the raising of steel beams,” Brazeal said. “That’s the first construction phase.”
Work has gotten started on the next phase, roofing the structures.
“And we just started pouring the concrete for the floor in the paint shop” on Tuesday, he said.
The Mazda Toyota facility will have three separate shops: for stamping and welding, paint, and assembly. Brazeal said there will be a separate administration building, and construction hasn’t started on that yet.
Production is scheduled to start in 2021.
The company has said it will have up to 4,000 employees, and people interested in applying can check www.mazdatoyota.com for information. The site is updated about every two weeks, Brazeal said.
“We’re continuously hiring skilled labor, professional staff from specialists to management level and production group leaders,” Brazeal said.
Brazeal said 249 skilled labor employees, like maintenance, facility maintenance and tool and die workers, will be needed.
“We plan to hire 100 this year,” he said.
Brazeal said a challenge has been finding body-weld production group leaders, whose responsibilities will include supervising a group of up to 25 employees on the production line and achieving safety and quality targets for their section of the production line.
However, “we had 2,000 applicants for team leader jobs,” he said. “Ultimately around 15 team leaders were hired.”
A major step in hiring comes this fall.
“We do plan to kick off production hiring in the fall,” Brazeal said. “We plan to hire a minimum of 3,000 production workers.”
He said about 60 employees — a mix of team and group leaders, managers and assistant managers and administrative staff — were hired last month. About half of them are now training at Toyota plants in San Antonio, Texas, or Georgetown, Kentucky, and will go to Japan in October for additional training, according to Brazeal.
“The team leaders will train the future production workforce,” he said.
“We are excited by the opportunities that are now available to our students,” said Limestone County Schools Superintendent Tom Sisk. “We are grateful for the partnerships that have come together to make this possible.”
Toyota said last month it would build a new, unspecified sport utility vehicle at the plant instead of the Corolla, in response to the growing demand for SUVs and light trucks. Toyota will continue to build Corollas at its factory in Blue Springs, Mississippi.
Mazda also plans to build a new yet-to-be-unveiled SUV at the Limestone County plant.
“We have not been told (the) timing on the announcement yet,” Tamara Mlynarczyk, a spokeswoman for Mazda North American Operations, said in an email. A corporate communications manager with Toyota couldn’t be reached for comment.
